
0*24? 




I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
% - VM^lOl t 

5/ ' if iff 4 

#|% pvmK ;\o 

I PHf I 



J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



MAN AND WOMAN; 

OR, 

THE LAW OF HONOR APPLIED TO THE SOLUTION 
OF THE PROBLEM, 

WHY ME SO MAM MORE WOMEN THAN MEN 

wmmi 

BY TH 



REV. PHILIP SLAUGHTER, 

EECTOE OF CALVARY CHINCH, CrLPEPPEE COUSTY, YIBGIXIA. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. T. BLEDSOE, LL.D. 

Of the University of Virginia. 





Marcellus dedicated a temple to virtue, and near it placed another 
dedicated to honor : the temple of virtue was the passage to the tem- 
ple of honor. — Lrv. i. 2. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIPPIXCOTT & CO. 

1860. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT k CO. 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



The Library 
of Congkf.ss 

WASHINGTON 



TO THE 



PROFESSORS, ALUMNI, AND STUDENTS 



Initaitj of f irpia, 

This humble contribution to the solution of an interesting problem 
is inscribed as a small token of respect for my Alma Mater. I look 
back upon the years of my boyhood spent 'within the walls of tho 
University with feelings of pleasure and regret,-rof pleasure in the 
memory of privileges enjoyed and friendships formed, of regret for 
privileges abused and friendships broken by death. That the present 
students and those who shall succeed them may so pass their time 
that they can look back upon it with pleasure and no regret, and that 
each of them may be an honor to the University, to his country, to 
his God, and to himself, is the sincere prayer of 

THE AUTHOK. 
Mat 10, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

Pagb 
THE PROBLEM 5 

CHAPTER II. 

THE INFIDEL SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM 10 

CHAPTER III. 

ANOTHER THEORY 16 

CHAPTER IV 

THE TRUE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM 24 

CHAPTER V. 

THE DIFFERENT EDUCATION OF THE SEXES 26 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES TO THE FAMILY, TO 
THE STATE, TO SOCIETY, AND TO THE GENERAL 
PRACTICAL BUSINESS OF LIFE 33 

CHAPTER VII. 

POLITICS — MAN THE VOTER, THE PARTISAN, THE 

REPRESENTATIVE 37 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MONEY 44 

1* V 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Pagx 
THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS OF MORALS WHICH MEN, 
THE MASTERS OF OPINIONS, HAVE MADE FOR 

"WOMEN AND FOR THEMSELVES THE LAW OF 

HONOR — BISHOP ATKINSON'S SERMON EX- 
TRACT 61 



PART II 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS 73 

CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION — DIFFERENT METHODS FOR BOYS AND 
GIRLS — THE SOUL OF A BOY WORTH AS MUCH 

AS THE SOUL OF A GIRL A PROTEST AGAINST 

THE LAW OF "HONOR," AS APPLIED TO EDUCA- 
TION 77 

CHAPTER III. 

THE FAMILY A DIVINE INSTITUTION, OF WHICH THE 
FATHER IS THE HEAD — THE FATHER, NOT THE 
MOTHER, THE PROPHET AND PRIEST OF THE 
FAMILY 83 

CHAPTER IV. 

EDUCATION 93 

CHAPTER V. 

THE DIFFERENT RELATIONS OF THE SEXES TO THE 

FAMILY 106 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE LAW OF HONOR 110 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE DUEL 145 



INTRODUCTION. 



I will not offend the modesty of the 
author, nor the taste of the Christian reader, 
by writing a panegyric on the merits of the 
following volume. It can and will speak for 
itself. All it needs is a fair hearing. But 
the interests of truth require me to say that, 
while discussing a subject of the highest im- 
portance, it exhibits one of the best attri- 
butes of good writing, in being at once both 
obvious and original. So obvious, indeed, are 
some of its trains of reflection when once 
stated, that the reader can scarcely resist 
the impression that he must have seen them 
before; and yet they are so original, that he 
may search whole libraries for them in vain. 
Nor is this the chief merit of the book. It 
partakes of the nature of divine truth itself, 



Vlll INTEODUCTION. 

in that it is alike adapted to interest the 
child and the sage, or, what is still better, to 
awaken serious thought and confer lasting 
benefit on the reader who, like the present 
writer, is neither a child nor a sage. Only let 
it be read, and it cannot fail to do good wher- 
ever the name of Christianity is respected 
or the best interests of society are under- 
stood and valued. 

The problem discussed by the author is, 
Why db so many more women than men be- 
come Christians? This is the one point from 
which all his reflections depart, and to which 
they return. It is not my purpose to antici- 
pate him, by giving any thing like an ab- 
stract of his work, or by putting his very 
suggestive thoughts in any words but his 
own. I merely intend, by way of introduc- 
tion, to offer a few additional reflections, 
which have been suggested by "the infidel 
solution of the problem," as set forth in the 
second chapter of the volume. This solution 
is, in substance, that woman is the weaker 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

vessel, and is therefore more easily deceived 
by the shams and sophistries enlisted in the 
cause of Christianity. The spirit of this 
solution, even when not expressed in words, 
often lurks in the heart of man, and, with 
many other things of the same kind, serves 
to harden it against the influence of the 
truth. He feels as if religion is an affair for 
women and children, but not for the higher 
order of intellectual beings, like himself. 
He may admit, perhaps, that it is a good 
thing for "the vulgar herd," as he is pleased 
to call the uneducated multitude; but he 
very surely imagines that one who has 
reached the sublime heights of reason should 
lay aside "the prejudices of his infancy." 
This spirit, which lies concealed and unsus- 
pected in the hearts of so many, sometimes 
speaks out in right plain and intelligible 
words. Thus, Laplace, in his great work, "IJa 
Systeme du Monde" turns aside to deplore the 
fact that even some of the greatest minds, 
such as Leibnitz and Newton, have not been 



X INTRODUCTION. 

able to overcome "the prejudices of infancy/ 
as he expresses himself, and rise above the 
vulgar multitude into the region of pure 
reason, where neither a film of prejudice nor 
a shadow of superstition ever intercepts the 
view of men or of angels. He seems to 
stand on some one of the stars in the Meca- 
nique Celeste, and look down, with an eye of 
pride and pity, on the greatest minds of 
earth, such as Descartes and Pascal and 
Leibnitz and Newton, because in the fetters 
of an infantile faith they are still associated 
with the weaker vessels of humanity. 

Now, it would not be proper in us, perhaps, 
to suggest the inquiry whether Laplace was 
raised to such a sublime height by the ele- 
vating force of pure reason, or by the expan- 
sive force of pure gas. But, for one, I will 
venture to say that "these stronger vessels'' 
never appear so ineffably weak as when they 
attempt to frame objections against the 
Christian religion. I have read their objec- 
tions; and if ever I feel more profoundly 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

ashamed of human reason at any one time 
than at all other times put together, it is 
when I witness such manifestations of it. 
A volume would scarcely suffice to illustrate 
the truth of this proposition, the justness of 
this sentiment; and yet our limits must con- 
fine us to only one or two examples. In se- 
lecting these instances, we shall not recon- 
sider the often exploded sophisms of a Hume, 
or a Gibbon, or a Yoltaire : we shall, on the 
contrary, examine the objection to Chris- 
tianity which lies the most deeply imbedded 
in the popular heart, and which is, therefore, 
the most likely to achieve a wide-spread 
mischief. 

I once heard an illustrious prelate* de- 
clare, from the pulpit, that of all the ob- 
stacles to the spread of the gospel the im- 
perfect lives and short-comings of Christians 
appeared to him the most formidable. The 



* Bishop Mcllvaine, whose work on the Evidences of 
Christianity has done, and is calculated to do, an immense 



Xli INTRODUCTION. 

embattled ranks of all the infidels in the 
world, said he, appeared to him as nothing 
when compared with such a weight and drag 
on the cause of Christianity; and he insisted, 
with overwhelming eloquence, that if the 
lives of Christians were such as they ought 
to be, then all the objections of infidelity 
might easily be scattered to the winds, and 
the victory be made complete. Now, all this 
is, no doubt, perfectly true, and should be 
most seriously laid to heart by every pro- 
fessing Christian. He should never forget 
that it is his high office and mission to re- 
flect, by a pure and spotless example, "the 
light of the world" on all the darkness 
around him. In point of fact, however, 
Christians are not perfect; and we are, there- 
fore, under the necessity of meeting infidels' 
in some other way. But for the faults and im- 
perfections of Christians, they could not keep 
thenselves in countenance for a moment. 
As it is, however, they maintain a bold front, 
and seldom fail to point the finger of scorn 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

and derision at the veiy imperfections and 
faults which constitute the strength of their 
own cause. The "weaker vessels/' espe- 
cially if they are weak enough to be not 
only almost but altogether Christians, are 
more likely to weep than to exult over such 
failings and disgraces of a fallen humanity. 

But what is the value of this objection in 
a logical point of view? It is, as we have 
seen, in a practical point of view one of the 
great strongholds of the infidel. Let us con- 
sider, then, its precise nature and value in 
the eye of "pure reason." The most rational 
and the most impartial unbeliever I have 
ever known once said, in my hearing, that, 
as an immortal being, he had considered it 
his first and most important duty to examine 
and weigh the evidences of Christianity. 
He was, in many respects, admirably pre- 
pared for such an investigation. For, besides 
the possession of one of the clearest and 
strongest intellects with which I have ever 
come into contact, the powers of his mind 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

had been trained by the discipline of severe 
studies in various departments of know- 
ledge, and he had with distinguished ability 
long filled the office of Chief-Justice of the 
State in which he resided. It had been, 
therefore, the business of his life, in a mea- 
sure, to study and apply the principles of 
evidence. "With such preparation, and after 
a careful examination, he did not hesitate to 
declare that the balance of evidence in favor 
of the truth of Christianity appeared to him 
" absolutely overwhelming." But then he 
added that when he turned from the evi- 
dences of Christianity, and considered the 
lives of Christians, his faith was again 
shaken, and the effect of all his investiga- 
tions neutralized. This case presents the ob- 
jection in question in all its simplicity and 
force. Let us, then, consider its real value. 

In replying to this objection, I shall endea- 
vor to do so, as nearly as possible, in the 
words of a young man who was present at 
the remarks of the chief-justice, and fresh 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

from the study of Butler's Analogy. "I 
think your difficulty/' said he to the chief- 
justice, "admits of a satisfactory reply." "I 
should like to hear it," said the chief-justice. 
"You believe," continued the young man, 
"in the being of a God and in his moral go- 
vernment of the world." "I no more doubt 
such things," replied the chief-justice, firmly, 
"than I doubt my own existence or the exist- 
ence of the sun in the heavens." "Then, for 
the sake of argument," said the young man, 
"let us suppose that the imperfect lives of 
Christians, their faults and failings, are suffi- 
cient not only to neutralize, but also to refute, 
all the evidences in favor of Christianity, and 
prove it to be false. In other words, let us 
suppose that Christianity cannot be of divine 
origin, since it permits those who profess it to 
remain so imperfect and full of faults. Then, 
Christianity being false, we must fall back on 
natural religion, on 'our belief in God and 
in his moral government of the world.' 
But is our position improved? Are the 



Xvi INTRODUCTION. 

faults of Christians or of other men mended 
by the supposition that Christianity is false ? 
Is not the world just as full of evil now as it 
was before ? Then, if the argument against 
Christianity be good, it is also good against 
natural religion. That is to say, this religion 
must be pronounced false, because it has 
failed to remedy the evils which it is designed 
to remove. Nay, the argument against 
Christianity bears with increased force 
against natural religion; since, if Christianity 
be false, then the Author of natural religion 
not only permits all the other evils in the 
world, but also the invention of a false reli- 
gion and the perpetration of all the crimes 
and frauds and miseries committed in its 
name. Hence we must either abandon this 
objection against Christianity, or else give 
up our natural religion, — our belief in the 
being, in the glory, and in the government 
of God, — and take our position in the starless 
and bottomless pit of atheism. For one, my 
choice is made." 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

The chief-justice made no reply. But 
some 3'ears afterward he told me that the 
argument of the young man had often re- 
curred to his mind, and that it appeared per- 
fectly satisfactory. We may, indeed, safely 
appeal to "the pure reason" of every man 
under the sun, if it is not as complete a re- 
ductio ad absurdum as any to be found in 
Euclid or in Archimedes. It is a complete 
answer, not only to the objection of the chief- 
justice, to whom it was addressed, but also 
to nearly all the sophisms and sneers which 
Gibbon has so plentifully scattered over the 
otherwise splendid pages of his "Decline and 
Fall." For nearly all of these are manufac- 
tured out of the faults, either real or sup- 
posed, of professing Christians. With the 
keen instinct of mischief, ho detects the 
weakest point in the mind of the Chris- 
tian world, and pours into that all the fires 
of his opposition. He does not see, and his 
readers do not always see, that he might 

turn precisely the same battery, and with 
2* 



XV1U INTRODUCTION. 

precisely the same effect, against the very 
being of a God and the reality of his moral 
government of the world. On the same 
ground, he might sneer at the reality of 
virtue, as so many have done, and conclude 
that every pretense to decency is a hollow 
profession and a sham. 

The argument of Gibbon is, indeed, as re- 
markable for its intrinsic weakness as it is 
for its great practical effect. The men who 
are deceived and misled by such an argu- 
ment in relation to the most momentous 
question that ever engaged the attenticm of 
rational and immortal beings, have surely no 
very special reason to be proud that they 
are not "the weaker vessels." For one, I 
had infinitely rather trust the intuitional fa- 
culty of woman than the logical faculty of 
such "stronger vessels/' — especially in regard 
to the great truths of religion, which have 
more to do with the heart than with the 
head. There are two animals, says Bacon, 
which may reach the top of a pyramid, — the 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

bird and the snake. The intuitional faculty 
of woman, like the bird, often reaches tho 
truth by a simple flight and from no other 
impulse than the natural affinity between 
truth and goodness; whereas the logical 
faculty of man, like the snake, may have to 
crawl from the base to the summit of truth, 
even when truth is the object of its pursuit. 
But this faculty, especially in such "stronger 
vessels" as a Voltaire, a Ilume, or a Gibbon, 
is far more apt to crawl downward and lose 
itself in the dark abyss and the frightful 
labyrinths of error than it is to seek the 
light which is round about the throne of 
God. 

No true woman ever doubted the reality 
of virtue because some of those who pro- 
fessed it had fallen from grace. Nor will she 
doubt the reality of religion, or its power 
over the human heart, because some Chris- 
tians bring disgrace on their profession. 
She could as soon believe that tho sun is a 
sham, and the source of no real blessing to 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

the world, because in acting on the corrupt 
portions of the earth its benign influence 
sometimes elicits noxious vapors and lashes 
a guilty race with the scourge of pestilence. 
She must cease to be a true woman, and be- 
come a silly fly, ere she will be caught in the 
cobwebs of the sophistry which Gibbon has 
spun with such elaborate art and ornamented 
with such consummate skill. She must be 
"the weaker vessel" indeed if, without any 
aid from the logic of " the stronger vessel," 
she can believe that the Sun of Eighteousness 
does not shine because the passions of men 
are still bad and their practices evil. The 
remedy is not chargeable with the disease. 
Nor is the physician to blame if those whom 
he seeks to save and cure will either reject 
his remedies, or else only adopt them in 
part. Gibbon might just as well have 
argued against Christianity because he re- 
jected its remedies altogether, as because 
others did not follow or adopt them and 



INTRODUCTION. Xxi 

therefore remained unworthy of their high 
profession. 

The ruling passion of the great historian 
was, as we learn from his own confession, 
"the desire of literary fame."* For this he 
lived, toiled, wrote; and he achieved, as 
every one knows, a most splendid literary 
reputation. It became all the greater be- 
cause in his time the infidels of France were 
the dictators of such fame for all Europe. 
If, instead of having served such an idol, he 
had chosen the Lord for his God and made 
the love of truth the ruling passion of his 
soul, he would most unquestionably have 
been a better man. He might, after all, have 
made a rather sorry Christian; but still he 
would have been a better man. He arraigns 
and condemns the Christian world because 
they do not live up to their principles. They 
would, no doubt, have found the task far 
easier if they had only attempted to live 
down to his principles. For, according to 

* Gibbon'3 Memoirs, vol. L 



XX11 INTEODUCTION. 

his own confession, self was the object of his 
great toil, and "literary fame" the god of his 
idolatry. How can they "believe which re- 
ceive honor one of another, and seek not the 
honor that cometh from God only" ? 

According to Laplace, all such skeptics as 
Gibbon are only partially emancipated from 
"the prejudices of infancy." They are still 
enthralled by one prejudice, which, in spite 
of all their genius and learning, enslaves 
them as well as most other men, women, and 
children, — namely, the belief in a God. He is 
entirely emancipated, and shows how all 
things came into being without the power 
of God. That is, he shows how the fabric 
of the universe, with all its infinity of suns 
and moons and stars, rose into being and 
rolled into one boundless system of systems 
without even "the hypothesis of a God." 
"Give me matter and motion," says Des- 
cartes, " and I will make a world." Even in 
this lofty boast Descartes betrays a sense 
of his dependence, and forcibly reminds one 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

of the man who lacked only two things to 
make a grand oration, — namely, words and 
ideas. But we discover no sense of need on 
the part of Laplace. He does not cry, " Give 
me." The necessity of an Almighty Intelli- 
gence to give existence and impulsion to 
matter forms no part of his philosophy; 
since matter and motion, with all their won- 
derful properties and laws, have been kind 
enough to furnish themselves for the purpose 
of his sublime speculations. We shall not 
at present stop to question the soundness 
of his speculations, the correctness of his 
cosmogony, the truth of his "nebular hy- 
pothesis. " We shall permit every thing to 
happen just according to his own sovereign 
will and pleasure. But, after all is over, and 
the universe has built itself to his entire 
satisfaction, we have one or two simple 
questions to ask him. 

Having turned the universe on the lathe 
of his logic, and fashioned it, and set it up 
in infinite space for our admiration, we would 



Xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

ask him, in the next place, to descend to 
earth, and explain to us the genesis of a 
single flower, or the formation of a single 
eye, by the wise operation of the law of 
gravity, or by , any other law he may 
please to select. Or, to take a still simpler 
case, we would beg him to show how a 
watch, or any other curious work of human 
art, could produce itself by the senseless 
whirl of blind atoms. Let us suppose that he 
sees a watch arise by such means. At first 
a screw is formed, with the head and helix 
rounded off, and each most exquisitely 
turned, and then a multitude of screws, 
just such in all respects as are needed for 
his watch. Other atoms form themselves 
into the springs, the wheels, the hard pivots, 
and the fastenings of the watch, — each and 
all of the right forms and sizes and ma- 
terials, so that each part may be exactly 
fitted to the rest and precisely suited to its 
own place and purpose. Then all these parts, 
thus curiously formed, arrange themselves, 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

each seeking and finding its own place, in 
which it then fastens itself in the most 
approved way, — all coming together in the 
complicated manner of a watch. Around 
this wondrous self-made whole a multitude 
of atoms form themselves into a solid case, 
with hinges and fastenings, while other 
atoms form the face, with all its figures per- 
fectly defined and wrought in, others make 
the hands, and others still the clear, trans- 
parent crystal, — each part both in degree 
and kind such as it should be, and fixed 
precisely in its place. The busy blind atoms 
having made the watch, lo ! it begins to 
move, and marks the time. Other atoms 
dance into a key, which winds the watch up 
and sets it aright ! 

Now, if any philosopher, poet, or dreamer 
had seen a sight like this, would he have told 
the secret to the world? Or, if he had, 
would not the world have marked him for 
an idle jester or a fool ? What should we 
say, then, when we are gravely told that 



XXvi INTRODUCTION. 

the whole world, with its ten thousand 
times ten thousand wonderful adaptations, 
is the result of a fortuitous concourse of 
blind atoms ? Should we not be excused if 
we suspected that the philosophy of our 
informant is little or no better than a for- 
tuitous concourse of blind absurdities ? " I 
had rather believe," says Bacon, "all the 
fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and 
the Alcoran, than that this universal frame 
is without a mind ; and therefore God never 
wrought miracles to convince atheism, be- 
cause his ordinary works convince it." 



PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE PKOBLEM. 

Developments at the communion table — An astounding 
phenomenon — Sermons of Bishops Meade, Atkinson, 
and Cobbs. 

Whenever the Holy Communion is admi- 
nistered in our churches, a scene is enacted 
which does not fill the heart of every serious 
Christian with profound grief and astonish- 
ment, only because it is so common. During 
the service and the sermon our congrega- 
tions are distributed in interesting family 
groups, as though each member of the 
family had a like interest in the great sub- 
ject which had gathered them together. 
But no sooner is the sermon ended than 
the scene changes. The greater part of the 
men rise from their seats, and turn their 



6 THE PEOBLEM. 

backs upon the most sacred solemnity of 
the Christian religion, declaring, by this 
conspicuous and decisive act, that they have 
no personal interest in the great salvation, 
of which the Holy Communion is so touch- 
ing a memorial. A mother or wife, 
daughter or sister, is often the sole and 
sorrowing representative of those interest- 
ing family groups which lately constituted 
such pleasing features in the picture upon 
which we had just been gazing with admi- 
ration and delight. 

Now, here is a problem which demands a 
solution, and one which shall consist with 
the divine authority of Christianity, and its 
equal obligations upon men and women. 
This important subject, so far as I know, 
has never been systematically treated. It 
has been only incidentally touched by phi- 
losophers and divines, and deserves more 
attention than it has hitherto received. 
Bishop Meade indicated a high appreciation 



THE PEOBLEM. 7 

of its importance by sometimes requesting 
clergymen of his diocese to address sermons 
specially to men when assembled in great 
numbers at the Annual Conventions of the 
Episcopal Church in Virginia. 

Several of these discourses were pub- 
lished, and are now in my possession. The 
first was preached by Bishop Meade, from 
the text, " These were more noble than 
those of Thessalonica, in that they received 
the word with all readiness of mind, and 
searched the Scriptures daily, whether these 
things were so; therefore many of them 
believed. Also of honorable women which 
were Greeks; and of men not a few." 

The next was preached by the Kev. N". 
C. Cobbs, then of Bedford County, and now 
Bishop of Alabama. His text was the 22d 
verse of the 17th chapter of Acts : — " Then 
Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill, and 
said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in 
all things ye are too superstitious." 

3* 



8 THE PROBLEM. 

A third was preached by the Kev. 
Thomas Atkinson, of Lynchburg, now 
Bishop of North Carolina, upon the 7th and 
8th verses of the 6th chapter of Galatians : — 
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked; 
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh 
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he 
that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit 
reap life everlasting." 

The fourth of these published discourses 
was preached by the author, from the 
words, "The love of money is the root of 
all evil; which, while some coveted after, 
they erred from the faith, and pierced them- 
selves through with many sorrows." 

None of these sermons considered but 
incidentally the particular problem which I 
have announced. Each treated such topics 
as seemed to him best fitted to arrest the 
attention of men, and make an impression 
upon them. 



THE PROBLEM. 9 

Having had my attention thus attracted 
to the subject, I was constrained to think 
about it; and having since occasionally 
revolved it in my mind, and witnessed the 
effects of special addresses to men, I have 
concluded to publish an humble contribu- 
tion towards the solution of a problem which 
challenges the profound and prayerful con- 
sideration of every one who considers a 
man's soul worth as much as a woman's. 

I propose to notice briefly some of the 
hypotheses which have been suggested in 
explanation of this astounding phenomenon, 
and then address myself to the exposition 
of my own theory. 



10 THE INFIDEL SOLUTION 



CHAPTER II. 

THE INFIDEL SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM. 

Woman the weaker vessel — Curious opinions of the 
Jewish Rabbins — The early Christian Fathers — 
The Scholastics of the Middle Ages, and of modern 
physiologists. 

It has been said that woman, being the 
weaker vessel in mind as well as body, 
is therefore more superstitious than man, 
and more easily becomes the victim of an 
artful and designing priesthood. I have no 
idea of considering the vexed questions 
arising out of the comparative anatomy, 
physiology, and intelligence of the sexes. 
The Jewish Eabbins, the early Christian 
Fathers, and the Scholastics of the Middle 
Ages have expressed opinions upon these 
subjects which deserve to be classed among 
the "Curiosities of Literature." In a 



OF THE PROBLEM. 11 

council at Macon, it was proposed, as a 
question of doubt, whether women were 
human beings ; and, after a long debate, the 
question was decided in favor of their 
humanity.* 

Towards the close of the sixteenth century, 
an Italian author maintained that women 
have no souls, f According to Bayle, the 
author of a commentary ascribed falsely to 
St. Ambrose affirmed that women were not 
made after the image of God. He was re- 
futed by Voetius in his Politica Ecclesias- 
tica. This point was much disputed in 
Holland, where Beverwick wrote a learned 
work to prove that women were not inferior 

* Polygamia Triumphalis, p. 123. Cum inter tot 
sanctos patres Episcopus quidam statueret non posse 
nee debere mulieres vocari homines, res tanti est habita 
ut in timore dei publico ventilaretur, et tandem post 
multos vexatae hujus questiones disceptationes, con- 
cluderetur quod mulieres sint homines. 

•j- Que le Donne non habbino anima e non sino della 
specie degli huomini e vienne comprobato da multi 
luoghi della scrittura santa. 



12 THE INFIDEL SOLUTION 

to men in any qualifications of body or 
mind. 

Geddicus, a Lutheran divine, also entered 
the lists in defense of women, and promised 
them an expectation of salvation upon good 
behavior. 

The women also took up the pen in their 
own defense. An Italian lady, Lucretia 
Marinella, contributed to the discussion a 
treatise entitled "The Nobleness and Ex- 
cellency of Women, with the Defects and 
Failings of Men."* 

In 1643 a book appeared at Paris, in 
French, called "The Generous Woman, 
who demonstrates that her sex is more 
noble, prudent, brave, wise, virtuous, and 
economical than that of man."f 

* La Nobilta e 1'excellencia delle donne, con diffetti 
si mancamonti degli huoinini. 

f La femme genereuse, qui montre que son sexe est 
plus noble, meilleur politique, plus vaillant, plus 
savant, plus vertueux, et plus e*conome, que celui des 
hommes. Other works in French and Italian appeared 



OF THE PROBLEM. 13 

Of late years, these subjects have been 
discussed almost exclusively by comparative 
anatomists, physiologists, and phrenologists. 
Elaborate comparisons have been instituted 
between the nervous and vital systems of the 
sexes. Their brains, their hearts, their lungs, 
and their stomachs, have been measured 
and compared, and some speculations have 
been indulged in, as to the influence of' 
physiological differences upon the mental 
and moral character.* 

Leaving these curious subjects for those 
who have more taste and time for them, I 

in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, viz.: La 
Donna migliore que del uomo. Jacobus Del Pozzo, 
Upsal. 1650. Que la donna sia de gran lunga piu degna 
dell huomo. Russelli, 1552. Les dames illustres ou par 
bonnes et fortes raisons elle se preuve que le sexe 
fe"minin surpasse en toutes sorts le sexe masculin. Made- 
moiselle Guillaume, Paris, 1665. L' Alphabet de l'im- 
perfection et de malice des femmes. Olivier. Re"plique 
a l'antimalice. De la Bruyere, Berne, 1617. 

* Walker on Woman, Michelet, Gall, Spurzheim, 
Combe, Dr. Alexander, Madame De Stael, Mrs. Woll- 
stonecraft. 



14 THE INFIDEL SOLUTION 

return to the hypothesis mentioned in the 
beginning of this chapter. It is the infidel 
theory, which assumes that Christianity is 
a superstition. A refutation of it would 
at first view seem to demand a complete 
exhibition of the evidences of Christianity. 
But this is rendered unnecessary by the 
fact that the suggestion is irrelevant. It 
would have some plausibility if it could be 
shown that Christianity is only believed by 
women and weak-minded men. But such 
is not the fact : on the contrary, Christianity 
comes accredited to us by men of the high- 
est sanctity of character and splendor of 
talent. 

Natural, mental and moral philosophers, 
statesmen, jurists, and physicians, the most 
comprehensive and profound that have in- 
structed the world in every science and art, 
have brought all the laurels which they 
reaped in the fields of their fame, and laid 
them as humble offerings upon the altar 



OF THE PEOBLEM. 15 

of Christ. Surely Locke, Newton, Butler, 
Hale, Paley, and Pascal are as competent 
to detect error and discover truth as Hobbes 
and Hume and Gibbon and Voltaire. This 
theory does not account for the fact that 
Christianity enrolls among its disciples the 
most illustrious names in history; and 
therefore I dismiss it as an inadequate solu- 
tion of the problem. 



16 ANOTHER THEORY. 



CHAPTER III. 

ANOTHER THEORY. 

Man has more brain than -woman, woman more heart 
than man — The Scriptures recognize no original di- 
versity in the moral constitution of the sexes — This 
diversity the fruit of Jewish and Christian civiliza- 
tion — Letter of Rev. J. Addison Alexander, D.D. 

It has been said that, while the intellect- 
ual faculties are more highly developed in 
man, the emotional nature is more largely- 
developed in woman ; man has more brain 
than woman, and woman has more heart 
than man; and that as Christianity ad- 
dresses itself to our emotional rather than 
to our intellectual nature, — to the heart, 
rather than to the head, — woman more read- 
ily responds to its appeals than man. This 
theory has been advocated by able and 
good men, who think that the final cause 
of this diversity is to be found in the fact 



ANOTHER THEORY. 17 

that to mothers is committed the early- 
training of boys as well as girls. Man is 
thus compensated, and the Deity vindicated, 
for what otherwise would seem a partial 
procedure. This theory supposes that the 
Creator has made an original difference in 
the moral constitution of man and woman, 
placing woman upon a platform from which 
she may more easily ascend to heaven than 
man. The Scriptures nowhere recognize 
this distinction. They address themselves 
to humanity as composed of both sexes, and 
as standing upon the same platform. There 
is not, so far as I can see, a word or a fact 
in the Bible, which warrants the conclusion 
that men are more excusable than women 
for not being Christians. On the contrary, 
there is a fact which confronts us as soon as 
we open our Bibles, from which it might 
be plausibly argued that the very suscep- 
tibility which is supposed to make woman 
more responsive to religious appeals, also 



18 ANOTHER THEORY. 

makes her a more easy captive to the wiles 
of the tempter. In Paradise, ere they had 
lost their innocence, it was the woman who 
sinned first. In the language of St. Paul, 
1 Tim. ii. 19, Adam was not deceived, but 
the woman being deceived was (first) in the 
transgression. Upon which Bloomfield re- 
marks, The woman was especially in fault. 
So far from being originally in a better 
position than man in regard to salvation, 
the sex which was the means of bringing 
ruin on the human race will not be excluded 
from salvation, nor will be admitted to it on 
worse terms, but it will be extended to them 
in consideration of their child-bearing, on 
the same conditions of faith and obedience. 
I am indebted to the late Rev. J. Addison 
Alexander, of Princeton, one of the most 
accomplished Biblical critics in America, 
for the following admirable summary of 
the results of the best criticism upon 
the 15th verse of the 2d chapter of First 



ANOTHER THEORY. 19 

Timothy. It was written but a few months 
before his lamented death, in answer to a 
private letter soliciting his opinion. 

"Princeton, Sept. 28, 1859. 

"Rev. and Dear Sir: — The verse to 
which you refer (1 Tim. ii. 15) is among 
the most difficult and doubtful in the Bible. 

" Every word of the first clause has been 
variously understood ; and it is still a ques- 
tion whether the subject of the sentence is 
Eve, the Virgin Mary, the female sex, or 
every woman in particular ; whether ' saved' 
has a temporal or a spiritual meaning; 
whether the preposition (oca) should be 
rendered in, by, or notwithstanding, and 
whether the noun following means ordinary 
child-birth, or the birth of the Messiah, or 
the nurture of children, or children them- 
selves, &c. 

" Looking at the clause by itself, I should 

be strongly tempted to adopt the ancient 

explanation, that Eve, though first in the 
4* 



20 ANOTHER THEORY. 

transgression, will be ultimately saved by 
the very means employed to punish her, i.e. 
through Christ who was descended from 
her. But as this does not agree well with 
what goes before, nor at all with what fol- 
lows, I acquiesce in the conclusion of the 
most judicious writers, that, however the 
particular expression may be construed or 
interpreted, the meaning of the whole verse 
is, that woman, although under the specific 
curse incurred by Eve's transgression, is 
not thereby excluded from the great sal- 
vation secured by faith and evidenced by 
patient continuance in well-doing, but only 
from the office of a public teacher. 

"It would thus seem that, so far from 
woman being regarded as occupying origin- 
ally a position more favorable to the salva- 
tion of the soul than man, St. Paul thought 
fit to combat the inference that she would 
be excluded from salvation, from the fact 
that she was first in transgression. 



ANOTHER THEORY. 21 

"Indeed, the current of early opinion 
seems to have set strongly towards the 
conclusion that the sin of Eve had been 
visited upon the sex, greatly diminishing 
the chances of their salvation, and, in the 
opinion of some, totally excluding them 
from it. The contrary opinion of woman's 
greater purity and susceptibility to religious 
impressions is modern, because the fact 
itself is modern. It is the effect of civili- 
zation, which is a fruit of Christianity. 
Christ found woman in the dust of degrada- 
tion; he took her by the hand and placed 
her by the side of man. In Christ Jesus 
there is neither ' male nor female,' rich 
nor poor, bond nor free. This passage does 
not mean that there are no distinctions be- 
tween classes and sexes, and that there are 
no privileges and duties arising out of these 
distinctions, but merely that they are all 
on a level in regard to salvation. Every- 
where and in all times, out of the sphere of 



22 ANOTHER THEORY. 

Christianity,* degradation is the condition 
of the female sex, and insult and suffering 
her reward. It was so among the ancient 
Greeks and Komans; it is so among the 
Hindoos and Chinese. Gutzlaff says of the 
women of China, 'They are the slaves and 
concubines of their masters; they live and 
die in ignorance; and every attempt to 
raise themselves is regarded as impious 
arrogance. Many of them fly to suicide as 
a refuge, and a large proportion of their 
female children are destroyed, 'f 

" According to Bishop Heber, the condi- 
tion of Hindoo women is worse than that of 
the Chinese. 'Mohammedanism adds its 
authority to Hindooism and Buddhism in 
excluding woman from instruction, and pro- 
nouncing her soulless and irreclaimably 
wicked.' It is Christianity which has 



* I include the Old and New Testaments, 
f In Pekin four thousand are annually murdered. — 
Abeel. 



ANOTHER THEORY. 23 

lifted woman out of the mire, and raised 
her to an equality of religious privilege 
with man. And the institutions and influ- 
ences with which civilization has sur- 
rounded her (and which will be hereafter 
enumerated) have elevated her into that 
higher and purer region where she now 
shines, the apparent favorite of Heaven, 
and the admiration of man, upon whom she 
reflects some rays of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness which has so illuminated her."* 

* It appears, (says Meunier,) among all the savage 
nations, as if women were considered profane, even 
from the nature of their sex. They are not allowed to 
assist in religious ceremonies ; and in the churches of 
Laponia there are doors through which they are not 
allowed to pass. 



24 THE TRUE SOLUTION 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TRUE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM. 

The phenomenon in question is not the 
effect of one, but of many concurring causes. 
Some of the most efficient of these causes I 
shall now enumerate and discuss. In the 
first place, it is owing to the different educa- 
tion of the sexes, using the term " education" 
in its largest sense, as comprehending all 
the influences which surround us from child- 
hood to maturity, and which contribute to 
the development of moral character. 

In the second place, to the different rela- 
tions which the two sexes sustain to the 
family, to the state, to society, and to the 
general practical business of life. 

In the third place, to the different stand- 
ards of morals which man, the master of 



OF THE PEOBLEM. 25 

opinions and the " maker of manners," has 
prescribed for himself and for woman. 

These are the elements which, in combi- 
nation, solve the problem ; and I shall now 
proceed to discuss them in order. 



26 THE DIFFERENT EDUCATION 

CHAPTER V. 

THE DIFFERENT EDUCATION OF THE SEXES. 

"Every first thing continues forever with a child. 
The first color, the first music, the first flower, paint 
the foreground of life. Every new educator effects 
less than his predecessor, until at last, if we record all 
life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of 
the globe is less influenced by all the nations he has 
seen, than by his nurse."* — Ejchter's Levana. 

The sentiment of Richter ; which stands 
at the head of this chapter, is as true in 
fact as it is beautiful in expression. 

It owes its beauty to its truth, as some 
human faces owe their beauty to the soul 
shining through them. 

It is the result of a profound observation 
of human nature, and is the same sentiment 
which has been so happily expressed by 

* Educit obstetrix, educat nutrix, instituit peda- 
gogus, docet magister. Var. in Non. 443. 



OF THE SEXES. 27 

those keen observers, the old classic poets, * 
who but echo the wisdom of Solomon when 
he laid down the principle, " Train up a 
child in the way he should go, and when he 
is old he will not depart from it." 

It is pleasing to see how men of the 
deepest insight, looking at human nature 
from independent stand-points, in different 
ages and nations, render homage to the 
truth by such undesigned coincidences. 

In the cradle there are no indications of 
a difference in the moral constitution of the 
sexes. But at the door of the nursery their 
paths begin to diverge, and never coincide 
again until they meet in the grave. The 
mother is the center around which the 
daughter revolves. The orbit in which she 
moves is ever under the mother's eye. Her 
father and brothers, like guardian angels, 

* Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa 
diu. — Horace. 

Udum, et molle lutum est, nunc, nunc properandus, et 
acri fingendus sine fine rota. — Persius, Sat. 3. 



28 THE DIFFERENT EDUCATION 

watch over her purity, and shield her from 
contact with vice in all its grosser forms. 
She sees no immodest spectacles; she hears 
no unchaste speeches or lascivious songs; 
she reads no licentious romance or poem; 
she utters no profane oaths; she inflames 
her blood with no intoxicating beverages; 
she plays at no games of chance. Every 
vicious tendency is checked, and every 
moral development encouraged. In such a 
comparatively pure atmosphere, she expands 
into the bloom of womanhood, and bears 
corresponding fruits.* 

Now compare with this picture of the 
girl a portrait of the boy. In the nursery, 
while surrounded by the same associations 
and subject to the same influences with his 
sister, his moral developments are very 
much the same with hers. But his mother 
and his nurse have told him that he is a 

* Bene pudice que educata usque ad adolescentiam. 
— Plautus. 



OF THE SEXES. 29 

little man. Accordingly, lie soon disdains 
the innocent amusements of his sister. He 
breaks the bounds of the nursery, and runs 
and leaps and wrestles. He affects the dog, 
the gun, and the horse, and expatiates in 
field and forest. He now begins to repudiate 
the authority of his mother, and to plead 
the example of his father and the opinion 
of his playmates. The boys have a code of 
honor, to which they conform their senti- 
ments, their conduct, and their costume. 
This code of honor is what " the boys say ;" 
and it is a higher authority than the pre- 
cepts of parents and the laws of God and 
man. It is absolutely certain that in a 
society composed of persons of immature 
reason and strong passions the standard of 
morals will not be very high. It will 
surely tolerate what pleases the taste and 
gratifies the appetite, and be an expression 
of nearly every thing which boys want to 
do. Accordingly, the members of this little 



30 THE DIFFERENT EDUCATION 

community may use tobacco, drink intoxi- 
cating liquors, swear, hear and tell obscene 
anecdotes, sing licentious songs, read licen- 
tious books, play at games of chance, wit- 
ness immodest spectacles, and indulge in 
other nameless lusts. And even the amuse- 
ments in which the youth of both sexes 
participate are attended with very different 
consequences. The young woman is at- 
tended by her father or mother, or other 
trusted friend, who watch with argus eyes 
over her purity, and, when the curtain falls 
or the dance is done, she is conducted to her 
home, "and lies down beneath the shadow 
of a mother's win sis." 

Not so with our sons. These often go 
alone, and may withdraw without observa- 
tion and go where they list. Excited by the 
scenes through which they have passed or the 
potations which they have imbibed, "their 
blood is up," and their appetites and pas- 
sions clamor for gratification. Temptations 



OF THE SEXES. 31 

flit before them in the street. Pimps await 
them at every corner. Temples of Bacchus,* 
of Pluto, f and of Venus allure them with 
brilliant lights and voluptuous music. Such 
different modes of life must produce very 
different moral results. Take two plants: 
place one in a conservatory, where you can 
regulate the temperature, admitting the 
rays of the sun, and the gentle dews and 
rains of heaven, according to its needs ; 
eradicate every weed, and protect it from 
rude winds and biting frosts. Turn the 
other out to compete with the natural 
growth of the soil; let the summer's sun 
scorch, the frosts of winter bite, and the 
rude storm beat upon it. 

Would any rational man look for the same 

* The god of wine and king of drunkards, with red 
face and bloated body. 

| "Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell, 
Revengeful cares and sullen sorrow dwell." 

&neid, 6. 

5* 



32 DIFFERENT EDUCATION OF THE SEXES. 

fragrant flowers and delicious fruits from 
these two systems of culture ? 

From the general analogy between nature 
and Revelation, so perspicuously displayed 
by Bishop Butler, it is highly probable, if 
not absolutely certain, that God acts upon 
the same principles in the kingdoms of 
nature and of grace. The principle is this : — 
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap." "If a man sows wheat, he will 
reap wheat ; if he sows cockle, he will reap 
cockle." 

So, as to spiritual things, "He that soweth 
to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corrup- 
tion, and he that soweth to the spirit shall 
reap life everlasting.' ' 



RELATIONS OF THE SEXE3. 33 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES TO THE 
FAMILY, TO THE STATE, TO SOCIETY, AND 
TO THE GENERAL PRACTICAL BUSINESS OF 
LIFE. 

"Man may range 
The Court, Camp, Church, the vessel and the Mart, 
Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory, — offer in exchange 
Pride, Fame, Ambition, to fill up his heart — 
And few there are whom these cannot estraDge. 
Men have all these resources, woman, but one, 
To love." Byron. 

When the sexes reach maturity and as- 
sume the responsibilities of men and women, 
they stand in different relations to the 
family, to the state, to society, and to the 
general business of life. These relations 
are much more favorable in the case of 
women than of men to the development 
and growth of the religious character. 
Man is the head of the family. Upon him 



34 KELATIONS OF THE SEXES. 

devolves the solution of the problems. What 
shall we eat, what shall we drink, and 
wherewithal shall we (and especially woman) 
be clothed ? The solution of these problems 
is often very perplexing, and so occupies 
the time and absorbs the thoughts of many 
men as to leave them (as they allege) no 
time and no heart for " seeking the kingdom 
of God." Upon man also devolves the care 
of the state. He is voter, representative, 
judge, juror, and magistrate in all its grades. 
He chooses the lawmakers, and makes and 
administers the laws. He is also the 
lawyer, the physician, the farmer, the mer- 
chant, the mechanic. He monopolizes all 
the professions and trades. 

The defenses of the country also fall upon 
men. They fill the ranks of the army and 
of the navy. These duties involve all the 
demoralizing effects of war, as they are 
represented upon the "pictured pages of 
the historian," and they also involve the 



TO THE FAMILY, ETC. 35 

demoralizing effects of peace upon the sol- 
dier and the sailor. 

If we would appreciate the effect of these 
causes, we should take a panoramic view 
of Christendom. We must make the men 
pass in grand procession before the imagi- 
nation, observe the daily habits of each in 
his sphere, in all the varied walks of agri- 
culture, of manufactures, of commerce, of 
civil and of military life, upon the land 
and upon the sea, at home and abroad. 
Then contrast this picture with the quiet 
life of women, in their narrow spheres of 
wife, mother, and daughter, and you will 
be in a position to form something like an 
adequate conception of the bearing upon 
the question we are considering, of the re- 
lations of the sexes to the family, to the 
state, to society, and to the general practical 
business of life. It would be easy to show, 
by an induction of particulars, the special 
influence of the several professions and 



36 RELATIONS OF THE SEXES. 

trades in repressing the religious element 
in man ;* but a few illustrations will suffice 
to show the nature and force of the argu- 
ment. 

These will be found in the two following 
chapters. 

* "If we deny women the talents which would 
enable them to excel as lawyers, they are preserved 
from the peril of having their principles warped by 
that too indiscriminate defense of right and wrong to 
which the profession of the law is exposed. If they 
are not mathematicians, they are happily exempt from 
the danger to which the votaries of that science are 
said to be liable: namely, that of looking for demon- 
stration upon subjects which from their nature are 
incapable of affording it. If they are less conversant 
with the structure of the human body and the motions 
of the heavenly bodies than physicians and astrono- 
mers, they escape the error into which these sometimes 
fall, — namely, of resting on second causes, instead of 
referring all to the first." — H. More. 

"The bondage of business debases man, and often 
renders him coarse and avaricious. Woman's work, 
which does not absorb her mind, is like the woof to the 
web of her thoughts. She weaves upon it the house- 
hold matters which man, engaged in business, has not 
thought of, and she dreams about the future." — 
Michelet. 



POLITICS. 37 



CHAPTER VII. 

POLITICS — MAN THE VOTER, THE PARTISAN, 
THE CANDIDATE, THE REPRESENTATIVE. 

"Vox populi, vox Dei." 

In our country the right of suffrage is 
wellnigh universal. Every man is, or may 
be if he wills, a voter. The exercise of this 
right, for which so many women are so 
vociferously clamoring, is attended by con- 
sequences by no means favorable to the sal- 
vation of the soul. It involves, among other 
things, the attending of elections, — in itself 
an innocent thing, but not always so in its 
fruits. Our general elections recur at stated 
periods, by no means distant, to say nothing 
of the special elections in the intervals. 
The names of the officers necessary to carry 
on the complicated machinery of a free gov- 
ernment is legion. One is astounded in 



38 POLITICS. 

running one's eye over the columns 'of a 
party newspaper on the eve of these general 
elections. The voter must not only attend 
the election, but there are also mass-meet- 
ings, conventions, committees, and many 
other popular gatherings incident to the 
campaign, as it is graphically called. These 
duties of patriotism demand the sacrifice of 
much time, much thought, and much money. 
They break up regular habits of industry. 
They take men away from the conservative 
influence of home. They lead them into 
many temptations. They tend to beget 
habits of idleness and of dissipation. They 
bring them into demoralizing associations 
with some of the worst specimens of hu- 
manity. They furnish opportunities of 
gambling and provocation to drunkenness. 
They stir up all the bad passions of our 1 
nature, such as envy, hatred, malice, and 
all uncharitableness. They engender strifes 
and contentions, and often lead to battle, 



POLITICS. 39 

murder, and sudden death. Our periodic 
political excitements are among the most 
extraordinary phenomena of the times in 
which we live. It is surprising to see how 
wide-spread ; profound, and irresistible they 
are. They sweep men before them like 
hurricanes. AVith the stump for his ful- 
crum, the popular orator realizes the idea 
of Archimedes : he literally moves the 
world. His breath can lash the "masses" 
into tumult, as the breath of heaven lashes 
the ocean into foam. Steam-power print- 
ing-presses, in the hands of skillful en- 
gineers, have made the ship of state quiver 
from stem to stern, and, without a special 
Providence at the helm, will yet wreck her, 
with all her precious freight. By the hot 
breath of politicians the minds of many men 
are inflamed into a red heat, like metals 
under a blow-pipe. The people are made 
to believe that the fate of the nation, and 
even the destinies of our race, hang upon 



40 POLITICS. 

the issue of an election. Nearly every man 
in such times is a partisan, and forthwith 
every man of his party becomes, in his 
eyes, a patriot, and every man of the op- 
posing party an enemy to his country. 
Each party rallies around its leaders, who 
form them into companies. Eecruiting offi- 
cers, drill-sergeants, and brigade-inspectors 
are appointed. Two hostile armies find 
themselves face to face, each under its own 
banner. The trumpet calls to arms. The 
campaign is begun. We hear the roar of 
the big guns and the shouts of victory, with 
frightful accounts of the killed, wounded, 
and missing, and heart-rending pictures of 
the tortures of the helpless captives. This 
may seem to some an exaggeration; but 
hundreds will recognize it as a faithful 
picture. 

Looking at such scenes from a merely 
worldly point of view, we may laugh at 
them as we might at the acting of a tragedy 



POLITICS. 41 

when the play is over and the actors, doffing 
their masks, relapse into their proper 
characters. But from the Christian stand- 
point the whole thing appears in a different 
light. It is a real tragedy ; and the victims 
are truth, faith, integrity, good conscience, 
and all the charities. But men are not only 
electors. They are also eligible to any of 
the many places of trust, from the constable 
of a precinct to the Chief Magistrate of the 
United States. There is no lack of patriots 
who are willing to serve their country. The 
number of those whose sense of fitness 
prompts them to volunteer their services 
would, if mustered together, make a large 
army. But the number of candidates is no 
adequate exponent of the number of aspi- 
rants. If you multiply the number of officers 
by the number of aspirants, the result 
would involve a large proportion of the men 
of the country. Hence arise a new class of 
temptations. Every aspirant has his com- 



42 POLITICS. 

petitors for the nomination. Every nominee 
has his opponent. These competitions beget 
envy, jealousy, heart-burnings, criminations, 
and recriminations. The candidates often 
depreciate their rivals, misrepresent their 
opinions, and impeach their motives. They 
sometimes sacrifice their convictions of duty 
and of public policy upon the altar of party, 
and become mere weathercocks, showing 
which way the wind blows. The voice of 
the people is to them the voice of God. 
They flatter the people, and the people 
flatter them. They make an oration, and, 
like the partisans of Herod, the people shout, 
and say, It is the voice of a God, and not of 
a man. 

The man may have been humble in the 
beginning of the canvass, but vanity and 
self-conceit soon usurp the place of humility; 
and nothing can seem more preposterous to 
such a man than to be told that he is a 



POLITICS. 43 

miserable sinner, that can only be saved by- 
grace. 

The care of the family and the care of 
the state are common to all men in this 
country to a certain extent. Every man is 
elector and eligible to office. Every man, 
therefore, is a politician, more or less, and 
watches over the state. The deluded women 
who are claiming equal political rights with 
men should rather rejoice in their exclusion 
from such demoralizing scenes and associa- 
tions.* Like the disciples of old, they should 
be keepers at home, praising God and 
having favor with all the people, f 

* "Supposing the licentiousness of the press to 
continue the same, and females were candidates for 
office : how much reputation would they have left 
after coming out of a warmly-contested election?" — 
Walker. 

f The same reasoning may be applied to the church 
as to the state. It is an organized body, with its 
officers and honors. It is also unhappily divided into 
parties. The odium theologicum has become a by- 
word and a reproach. 

6* 



44 MONEY. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MONEY. 

"Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames?" 

— Virgil. 
"Virtus, fama, decus, divitiis parent." — Hor. Sat. 2. 
"Gold, thou touchstone of hearts!" — Shakspeare. 

To the results which have been enume- 
rated as flowing from the relations which men 
sustain to the family, to the state, and to 
the general business of life, may be added 
the fact that they have so much to do with 
money. They are the financiers of the 
world. It is their peculiar office to make 
money, — to collect, manage, and disburse the 
revenues. I am not going to bring a " rail- 
ing accusation" against money. St. Paul 
is sometimes quoted as saying that money 
is the root of all evil. But there is no 
such text. Money in itself is not the root 
of any evil. It is a potent instrument of 



MONEY. 45 

good and evil. "We would not say of fire, 
because it burns and wraps our houses in 
flames, or of air ; because it brings pestilence 
on its wings, that they are intrinsically evil. 
Like many of the grandest agencies of 
nature, their very freedom is the essence 
of their being. Among the governing prin- 
ciples of our nature which are the great 
springs of human action, and which in 
themselves are neither virtues nor vices, 
are the appetites of our bodies and the 
desires of our minds. Among these are 
the desires of esteem, of power, of pleasure, 
and of property. According to the present 
constitution of the world, money is the 
representative of property, and as such is 
one of the main-springs in the intricate 
mechanism of society, giving motion to all 
the wheels in the complicated machinery of 
the family, the church, and the state. Being 
thus an indispensable agent in human affairs, 
it cannot be in itself an evil. Nor can the 



46 IfOHBY. 

d and proper use of it be wrong. 
To desire it as a means of living is as inno- 
cent as it is to live ; and to seek it as a means 
of doing good is not a vice, but a virtue. 
But money is not only a necessary of life, 
and a means of doing good, it also " holds 
the key to all the avenues of worldly enjoy- 
ment." It is a means of gratifying all our 
appetites and desires. It is so much "con- 
densed world, — a concentrated e - Inch 
can be diluted at pleasure and adapted to 
the taste of every one who pos- 

In the expressive words of the wise man, 
of which the foregoing quotation is but a 
paraphrase, "money answereth all this 
It is for the luxuries it buys, the praise, the 
fashion, the glitter and renown, it confers, 
that it is :) intensely loved and 
sought. It is the "love of mc 
Paul - ys is the root of all evil. It is, then, 
covetousness which St. Paul much 

idolatry as if its votaries made a golden 



MONEY. 47 

calf and fell down and worshiped it. Ho 
does not Bay, as Borne have hastily inferred, 

that it is the only cause of all the evil in 
the world, — but that it is the fruitful cause 
of every kind of evil; not that every act, 
but that every species of evil, spring from 
this prolific root. Its evil fruits are vari- 
ances, wrath, strife, envyings, theft, gam- 
bling, robbery, murder, and war. It is 
almost superfluous to add that men are the 
chief actors in these dreadful traf 
which women are the victims. Consider 
the number of lawsuits and private quar- 
rels which are daily occurring in almost 
every neighborhood, by which friendships 
are broken and family ties sundered, in 
which father is ai gainst son, brother 

against brother, and a man's foes are those 
of his own household, and you will gene- 
rally find that they are the fruits of this 
root of all evil. Add to these the em- 
bezzling of the public moneys, the defalca- 



48 MONEY. 

tions in the collection of the revenues, the 
frauds in army and navy contracts, in the 
management of the public lands and Indian 
affairs, and you may form an idea of the 
demoralizing and frightful effects of the 
universal scrambling after money. Go to 
the courts of justice, look at the dock- 
ets, and listen to the trial of civil and 
criminal causes. Head the police-reports 
of the cities, peruse the daily newspapers, 
and make an estimate of the number of 
crimes committed and reported, — to say 
nothing of those which come only under 
the cognizance of the all-seeing eye ; inves- 
tigate the motives to these crimes, and in 
a great majority of cases you will find that 
the love of money was at the bottom of 
them. Other pernicious fruits of this root 
of all evil are lotteries and every species 
of gambling. Think what vast multitudes 
have been ruined in body and soul for time 
and eternity by gambling. How many men 



MONEY. 49 

have been made drunkards, liars, profane, 
murderers, suicides ! How many heart-broken 

3, that might have graced and blessed 
society and adorned the Church of Christ, 
have been left to wither and die in solitary 
wretchedness ! How many promising chil- 
dren, that might have been an honor to their 
country and ornaments to the church, have 
been deprived of the means of moral and 
religious culture, and left to grow up in 
ignorance and vice, a burden to themselves, 
a dishonor to their friends, and a curse to 
the country, and some of them terminating: 
their career in the penitentiary or upon the 
gallc 

ain: consider the number of distilleries, 
and such like apparatus, for the concoction 
and sale of ardent spirits, which men have 
erected in the world, from which streams 
of liquid fire are daily flowing in every 
neighborhood, producing a moral desolation 
like those physical ones which are seen in 



50 MONEY. 

the vicinity of volcanic mountains after 
their eruptions of burning lava. What 
but this intoxicating love of money could 
induce men to convert so many of the pre- 
cious fruits of the earth, which God in his 
kind providence designed for the nourish- 
ment of our bodies, into a fell poison, fatal 
to the bodies and souls of men, whom he 
commanded them to love as they love them- 
selves ? But not only has the love of money 
thus demoralized individuals and infected 
all the social relations, but it has produced 
war between nations and deluged the earth 
with blood. If we look back upon the 
past by the lights of history, we see scarcely 
any thing but the pomp and circumstance 
of "glorious war." Almost every land 
has been covered with armies, and every 
sea with navies, prowling in quest of 
plunder. The time would fail me even 
to call the names of the ferocious leaders 



MONEY. 51 

who, instigated by the demons of avarice 
and ambition, have swept like tornadoes 
over the world, murdering millions of 
their fellow-creatures and leaving famine 
and pestilence and tears and blood in their 
track. It is no exaggeration to say that 
more than twenty thousand millions of men 
have been the victims of war, — i.e. more than 
twenty-five times the present population of 
the globe. Now, whence come wars and fight- 
ings among you ? Come they not hence even 
of your lusts which war in your members ? 
Yes, says the voice of history. "The lusts 
of ambition and avarice are the great causes 
of war." If any doubt existed as to the most 
general cause of war, we have only to refer 
to the history of the colonization of this 
continent, and particularly of the Spanish 
colonies, and not only will we be convinced 
of the truth of my position, but our hearts 
will be sickened at the degradation of man 
7 



52 MONEY. 

when he becomes the subject of the debasing 
sin of covetousness.* 

But not only has the love of money pro- 
duced wars between nations and poisoned all 
the fountains of human happiness, but, like 
the serpent in Eden, it has invaded the 
sanctuary of the church. The cases of Lot, 
Laban, Balaam, and Achan, in the Old, and 
of Judas, Ananias and Sapphira, Simon 
and Demas, in the New Testament, are but 
types, whose antitypes are to be found in 
every succeeding generation. In the lan- 
guage of Harris, having sold the Saviour 
to the cross, it proceeded to set up all the 
blessings of the cross for sale. "Nations 
were laid under tribute. Every shrine had 
its gifts, every prayer its charge, every 
blessing its price; dispensation from duty, 
and indulgence in sin, were both to be had 
at a fixed sum ; liberation from hell, and ad- 
mission to heaven, were both made subject 

* See Harris and Dick on covetousness. 



53 

to mom v. Ami, not content with follow 
ato the i -M, it cr 

a third v. ■ the sake of assisting its 

tortured inhabitants. Thus the 

intended I hout 

money and without j ime the tax 

and • • the world, and men rose 

up and cast it from ;' 1 cor- 

rupt: 
But it I that these were the 

s of otl. , other countries, and 

:i. While T joyfully 
I am far from thinking 
that from the spot of 

In order to be convinced 
of th but to compare the self- 

irit of th< i apostolic Church, — 
I all their possessions 
and I a at the apostles 1 feel to bo 

>rks of charity, — with many 
churches now, where Ghristi 
grudgingly to the best objects that can bo 



54 MONEY. 

presented, — where, if we want to take up 
a collection for the most charitable purpose, 
we have to get up a scene, to call on the 
arts, and the coloring of profane eloquence, 
"to search and probe the great body of 
human misery to the bone, to hold it up 
naked and expiring, quivering and dis- 
jointed," in order to wring that from mere 
human sympathies which we are entitled 
to demand from the calmest judgment of 
the mind. Again : are not many Christians 
as eager to be rich as others ? Are not some 
of them as close and keen at a bargain, and 
more diligent in laying up treasures upon 
earth, in defiance of the moth and rust and 
thieves, than in laying up treasures in 
heaven ? Are not others as fond of living 
in fine houses, and feasting at luxurious 
banquets, and clothing themselves in purple 
and fine linen, and shining in the circles of 
fashion, as though Christ had never said, 
"If any man will be my disciple, let him 



MONEY. 55 

deny himself, and take up his cross, and fol- 
low me" ? 

But not only does this sin thus paralyze 
the church, making the majority of "be- 
lievers useless to the church and the church 
itself comparatively useless to the world, 
but it is a fruitful cause of apostasy. This 
is broadly asserted by St. Paul, who says, 
" Which while some coveted after they 
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves 
through with many sorrows." In confirma- 
tion of this point, I will adduce the opinion 
of several learned divines of exemplary 
character and large observation. Dr. Griffin 
says, " Those professors of religion whose 
principal object it is from month to month 
to get gain, seldom attain a heavenly mind ; 
and, if there be any truth in the Bible, they 
will never attain heaven itself." Andrew 
Fuller expressed the opinion that "the love 
of money will prove the eternal overthrow 

of more professing Christians than any other 
7* 



56 MONEY. 

sin ; because it is almost the only sin that 
can be indulged in and yet a profession of 
religion be decently kept up." But I will 
not rely upon the testimony of others, how- 
ever high their authority. I appeal to the 
consciousness of my readers for proof when 
I affirm that if they are rich, and have any 
adequate conception of their responsibilities, 
they feel in their inmost souls the truth of 
the Saviour's declaration, "How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of heaven !" And if they are not 
rich, and are over-anxious to be so, they 
have a personal experience of the truth of 
St. Paul's declaration, "They that will he 
rich fall into temptations, and snares, and 
into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
drown men in destruction and perdition." 

The American church has felt most keenly 
the effect of these facts. Not many years 
have elapsed since the prospect of a rapid 
accumulation of wealth tempted crowds of 



MONEY. 57 

emigrants from the Eastern and Middle 
States to the prairies of the West and the 
cotton and sugar fields of the South. And 
ere this tide had ceased to flow, California 
arose and waved her golden wand, and with 
a shout it rolled on, with increasing volume, 
to the shores of the Pacific. And hardly 
does a month pass that we are not shocked 
with the intelligence that some of these 
(often for want of the means of grace) have 
"erred from the faith, and pierced them- 
selves through with many sorrows." But, 
independently of these facts, the love of 
money is one of the most efficient causes of 
the perdition of many persons who were 
never guilty of any of these outbreaking 
sins. The case of the young man in the 
Gospel is an example in point. He came to 
Jesus and said, "Good master, what good 
thing shall I do that I may have eternal 
life ?" Jesus replied, " If thou wilt enter into 
life, keep the commandments, viz. : Thou 



58 MONEY. 

Shalt clo no murder; thou shalt not steal; 
thou shalt not bear false witness ; honor thy 
father and thy mother; and love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself." The young man said, "All 
these things have I kept from my youth up. 
"What lack I yet?" Jesus, with a super- 
human sagacity, applied the test, " One thing 
thou lackest. Go, sell all that thou hast, and 
give to the poor, and come follow me, and 
thou shalt have treasure in heaven." And 
the young man was sad at that saying, and 
he went away grieved ; for he had great pos- 
sessions. "Well did the prince of all English 
poets say, "Gold, thou touchstone of 
hearts !" Now, here was the case of a moral 
man going to Jesus, calling him e< good mas- 
ter," falling upon his knees and inquiring 
what he should do to inherit eternal life, and 
yet, when the issue was made, deliberately 
sacrificing his soul upon the altar of Mam- 
mon. And does not this case illustrate that 
of some of my readers ? Have they not been 



MONEY. 59 

convinced of the divinity of Jesus, and upon 
their knees asked what they should do to 
be saved, and yet have gone away grieved 
because the spell of Mammon was upon 
them? Oh, there was meaning, there was 
feeling, in the exclamation, "How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of heaven !" And there is some- 
thing fearful in those words, " Woe unto 
you, ye rich men; weep and howl for the 
miseries that shall come upon you. Your 
gold and silver is cankered, and the rust 
of them shall be a witness against you." 

But let not any of my readers lay the 
flattering unction to their souls that be- 
cause they are not rich they are in no danger. 
It is possible for the poorest man to love 
money more than the rich. It is the love 
of money — the over-anxiety to be rich — 
that is the prolific root of all the evil fruits 
which I have enumerated. " They that will 
be rich fall into temptations, and snares, and 



60 MONEY. 

into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
drown men in destruction and perdition." 

Such is the testimony upon which I call 
upon the grand inquest of my readers to 
indict the colossal criminal, who tempts men 
to strife, law- suits, fraud, lying, theft, rob- 
bery, murder, and war, — who covers the 
land with distilleries, grog-shops, gambling- 
houses, and dens of prostitution, — who fills 
our jails and penitentiaries with his victims, 
— who is depopulating the earth and peo- 
pling hell, — and whose triumphs are cele- 
brated by the tears of widows and the cries 
of orphans. 



THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS. 61 



CHAPTER IX. 

the different standards of morals 
which men, the masters of opinions, 
have made for women and for them- 
selves — the law of honor — bishop 
Atkinson's sermon — extract. 

"You are the makers of manners." — Shakspeare. 

When we speak of a straight line, we 
mean a line which describes the shortest 
distance between two points. Such a line 
is a rule or standard. 

"When we say of any thing that it is 
crooked, we mean that it does not agree 
with such a rule. 

There are also standards of weights and 
measures established by the supreme power 
in states, to which the citizens or subjects 
of such state are bound to conform. If we 
say of an article which we buy that it is 



62 THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS 

too light or too heavy, we mean that it does 
not agree with such established standard. 

There are also standards of morals, by 
which men measure their conduct; and 
when we say of an action that it is right or 
wrong, we mean that it agrees or disagrees 
with such rules or standards. 

Of these moral rules or laws Locke says 
there are three sorts, with three different 
enforcements or rewards and punishments. 
These are the law of God, the law of the 
land, and the law of opinion or reputation. 
Paley agrees with this classification in 
terms, except that what Locke calls the law 
of opinion or reputation he calls the law of 
honor. In theory men generally acknow- 
ledge the paramount authority of the law 
of God, although most of them repudiate it 
in practice, because sentence against their 
evil works is not executed speedily. They 
generally recognize, both theoretically and 
practically, their obligation to keep the law 



OF MOEALS. 63 

of the land, because the breach of it is 
followed by immediate punishment. 

But, whatever may be the speculative 
theories of men, facts warrant the conclu- 
sion that "the general measure of virtue 
and vice in society is the praise or blame 
which by general and tacit consent esta- 
blishes itself in the several societies, tribes, 
and classes of men in the world; whereby 
actions find credit or disgrace among them 
according to the judgments, maxims, and 
fashions of that place. For although men 
have given up to the civil government the 
power of inflicting punishment, yet they 
have reserved to themselves the power of 
thinking and speaking well or ill of the 
conduct of those with whom they live. In 
comparison of this higher law, they little 
regard the divine or civil law. The penal- 
ties that attend the breach of God's laws 
most men seldom seriously reflect on. As 
to civil punishment, they flatter themselves 



64 THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS 

with hopes of impunity. But no man 
escapes the punishment who offends against 
the fashions and opinions of the company- 
he keeps. Nor is there one in ten thousand 
who has firmness enough to bear up against 
the constant dislike and condemnation of 
his own club."* 

Paley, it seems to me, makes a great 
mistake in limiting the law of honor to 
"people of fashion." It has a much wider 
jurisdiction. All men recognize its au- 
thority and yield to its sway, more or less. 
Public opinion is the supreme dictator in 
modern society. It is the common law of 
Christendom. 

But I need not now enter into a full 
exposition of this law. Such an exposition 
will be more appropriate in another chapter. 
"We have already seen the influence of this 
law in the education of boys and girls. I 
shall now notice the application of the prin- 

* Locke. 



OF MORALS. 65 

ciple to men and women in society. Men 
are the makers of manners. They not only 
make and expound the laws of the land, but 
they also make and expound the law of 
honor. Accordingly, we find that the pro- 
visions of the code of honor allow men to 
do many things with impunity which are 
forbidden to women as unpardonable sins. 

Men may swear, gamble, profane the 
Sabbath, be obscene in speech and licen- 
tious in conduct, — they may absent them- 
selves from home and spend whole nights in 
lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revel- 
ings, banquetings, and abominable idola- 
tries, — and yet not lose their place in society, 
but be recognized as honorable men.* But 
let a woman follow their example, and she 
is driven, like Eve, from the social paradise. 
If even the breath of suspicion blow upon 
her vestal robe, it is soiled. If she lapse 

* "L'hommc dtant le plus fort a fait decider par 
l'opinion, que cette action do sa part ne meritoient pas 
de blame." — De Stael. 



66 THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS 

but once from the path of virtue, she " falls 
like Lucifer." No penitence, however pro- 
tracted, can replace her on the pedestal from 
which she fell. No tears can wash away 
the stain upon her fair fame. You might 
as well attempt to reconstruct a broken 
vase, or to restore the tints and fragrance 
of a faded flower. 

" The white snow lay 

On the narrow pathway 
When the lord of the valley cross'd over the moor, 

And many a deep print 

In the white snow's tint 
Showed the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. 

"The next sun's ray 
Soon melted away 

Every trace on the path where the false lord came ; 
But none shall see the day 
When the stain shall pass away — 

The stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame." 

And yet that proud lord will lift his head 
in society as if he were a3 pious as an angel, 
while the victim of his hellish arts is, like 
Cain, a vagabond upon the earth. And even 
the virtuous woman, who would shrink from 



OF MORALS. 67 

her presence as from a pestilence, will often 
smile upon her betrayer, and give him her 
hand and her heart, as if he had never sinned.* 

"Hero liee the Bafetyof the female sex. 
Fublic opinion builds a wall of fire around 
woman. "f It does for woman what God did 
for Job : it " puts a hedge about her person 
and her house;" while as to man it says to 
him as God said to Satan, " All that he hath 
is in thy power." 

It is a remarkable fact that the rule of 
life which man has made for woman is the 
same, as far as it goes, with that which God 
laid down in the Bible for all mankind. Let 
us compare the two codes, — the one in the 
Bible which God made for men and women, 
and the code of honor which man has made 
for woman, — and we shall find a remarkable 

* That woman has little claim to respect on the score 
of modesty, though her reputation be white as snow, 
who smiles on the libertine, while she spurns the -victim 
of his lawless lusts. 

+ See Rev. Dr. Eddie's Lectures to Young Men. 
8» 



68 THE DIFFERENT STABDAKDG 

coincidence between them. The Bible a 
"Thou shalt not take the name of the I 
thy God in vain ; for the Lord will not hold 
him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." 
Our Saviour reiterates and re-enacts this 
law in the words, " Thou shalt not s~ 
neither by heaven, nor by earth; but let 
your communications be, Tea, yea, !Nay, nay; 
for whatsoever is more than these cometh 
of evil." 

Again, God says. "Eemember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy." 

"Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt 
not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet." 

>:. Paul says, "The works of the flesh 
are manifest, which are these: adultery, 
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idol- 
atry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emula- 
tions, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, 
and such like: of the which I tell you 
before, as I have also told you in time 



OF MORA 69 

that they which do such things shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God." 

w, men take all these divine laws and 
incorporate them into a code for the 
ernment of women. TI. to their 

j, and daughters, Keep these 
commandments. To the frightful penalties 
which God has annexed to the breaking of 
these laws, men say, we will add the 
mountain of our curse. If you swear, get 
drunk, commit adultery or fornication, or kill, 
even on the field of honor, you shall be 
exiles from our hearts and homes. You 
shall not pollute with your presence the 
Eden in which we dwell. Flaming swords 
turning ever -liall keep the g 

Your crimson sins may be made white in 
the blood of the Lamb, but we will never 
• ^ you, as Christ said to the weeping 
ialene, 'Go and sin no more.' We 
claim the monopoly of these sins. True, 
God has forbidden them; but we have made 



70 THE DIFFERENT STANDARDS 

a higher law. The code of honor denies 
this license to women; but it allows it to 
men. And we stand or fall, not by the 
judgment of God, but by the verdict of our 
peers. 

In the language of Bishop Atkinson, " men 
look upon themselves as privileged to be 
wicked. It is their prerogative to do with- 
out shame and without punishment that 
which in woman is base and infamous. 
They have made these distinctions for 
themselves. Grod has established the 
same rule of duty for both sexes. The 
purity which he demands of the one he 
demands with equal rigor of the other. 
But men make the difference. And for this 
reason do they make it. They have the 
light of Christianity, and see by it the 
beauty of holiness; they have, too, power 
in their hands, as women are necessarily 
dependent upon them. They exact, then, 
of woman that purity which is lovely even 



OF MORALS. 71 

in the eyes of the wicked. But they will 
not exact it of themselves. Their wives, 
sisters, and daughters must be governed by 
the strictest rules of propriety, but they 
themselves will submit to no such restraint. 
And what is the result? The wife, the 
sister, and the daughter can believe the 
gospel when it is presented to her, because 
her conscience is not to the same extent 
seared nor her mind stupefied by sin." 

Vicious indulgences have an evil and a 
danger in them that men are not aware of. 
By their own operation they impair the soul 
and render it incapable of knowing and 
enjoying God. "Men love darkness rather 
than light, because their deeds are evil. 
Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, 
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds 
should be reproved." There is no greater 
obstacle to believing the gospel than invete- 
rate habits of sin. The habits of profane 
swearing, of gambling, of drunkenness, of 



72 THR DIFFERENT STANDARDS. 

lewdness, and such like, when they are of 
long standing and deeply rooted, are nearly 
ineradicable. There is a fearful significance 
in the text, " Can the Ethiopian change his 
skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may 
ye who are accustomed to do evil learn to 
do well." The instances of permanent 
reformation are so rare that men of large 
observation can hardly cite a single example. 
Not so with woman. Although her heart 
is naturally averse to God and holiness, yet 
she is so trained and guarded, has compara- 
tively so few bad habits to change and 
temptations to resist, that her transition 
into the fold of Christ is far easier than 
that of man. In her case the law of God 
and the law of honor coincide. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Having now assigned what seem to me 
the most efficient causes why so many more 
women than men are Christians, it remains 
to suggest what seem to me the most appro- 
priate remedies for this deplorable state of 
things. 

An important point will have been gained 
if what has been said shall serve to dispel 
from the public mind what appears to be a 
fixed, though somewhat undefined, idea, — 
that this disparity is a necessary result of an 
original difference in the moral constitution 

73 



74 THE REMEDY. 

of the sexes, and therefore to be patiently 
acquiesced in by the church. Such a feeling, 
even if it does not amount to a positive 
conviction, will paralyze all efforts to remedy 
the evil, and we shall see at the judgment- 
seat of Christ the same disproportion that 
we see at the communion-table. No sound 
Christian mind can anticipate such a catas- 
trophe without horror and without feeling 
under the strongest obligations to ponder 
this problem anxiously and prayerfully, 
with a view of discovering and applying a 
remedy, if one can be found, for so frightful 
an evil. 

If the causes which I have enumerated 
do contribute to this result, it is important 
that men should know it. It cannot be 
denied that many irreligious men have 
an impression, which is sometimes openly 
avowed, that Christianity was intended 
specially for women, — that they have an 
original predisposition to it, — and conse- 



THE REMEDY. 75 

quently men are more excusable than women 
in the eye of God for not being Christians. 

Every person who has mixed much with 
men, conversed with them freely, and ob- 
served them closely, must have discovered 
that they lay this nattering unction to their 
souls. This creed is sometimes openly 
avowed, sometimes only insinuated, and 
more frequently, perhaps, is but dimly, if 
at all, seen by the consciousness, and yet 
determines the practical conduct. If this 
illusion can be dissipated from the minds of 
men, if they can be made to see the real 
obstacles in the way of themselves and of 
their sons to heaven, — the rocks which have 
wrecked and the whirlpools which have 
engulfed so many of them, — they might, 
perhaps, be induced to surmount the obsta- 
cles and avoid the sins that most easily beset 
them. The only way to awaken them from 
their indifference is to confront them with 
the facts of their case and hold them before 

9 



76 THE REMEDY. 

their eyes until they feel that they are 
without excuse, and that it is madness in 
them to lull their own conscience to sleep 
and to seek to silence their Christian friends 
with pleas which they dare not urge at the 
bar of God. With these introductory 
remarks, I proceed to suggest what seems 
to me the best method of counteracting the 
causes of the enormous disproportion be- 
tween the sexes at the communion-table. 



EDUCATION. 77 



CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION — DIFFERENT METHODS FOR BOYS 
AND GIRLS — THE SOUL OF A BOY WORTH 
AS MUCH AS THE SOUL OF A GIRL — A PRO- 
TEST AGAINST THE LAW OF "HONOR," AS 
APPLIED TO EDUCATION. 

* On the blue mountains of our. dim childhood, to- 
wards which we ever turn and look, stand the parents 
who marked out to us from thence our life. The most 
blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the 
warmest hearts." — Richter. 

I have designated, as one cause of 
the phenomenon we are studying, the 
different education of the sexes, using 
the term "education" in a large sense, 
as comprehending all the influences which 
surround us from infancy to maturity, and 
which contribute to the development of 
moral character. I have also indicated 
the principles which characterize the two 



78 EDUCATION. 

methods of culture, and shown their logical 
results. 

I do not propose the same discipline for 
boys and girls. A mannish woman would 
be as great an anomaly as a womanish man. 
Both are monsters. There are anatomical 
and physiological differences between the 
sexes, fitting them for the spheres which 
nature and revelation have marked out for 
them, which must not be ignored. "While 
I recognize these distinctions, I maintain 
that there is no original diversity in their 
moral constitution which predisposes the 
one sex to be religious more than the other. 
Both share alike in the effects of the fall, 
and Christianity is as appropriate and ne- 
cessary and efficacious a remedy in one 
case as in the other. 

I have admitted that there is a difference 
in the moral character of men and women 
as we find them in society, and I contend 
that this difference leads to the results 

7* 



EDUCATION. 7\) 

which we witness and deplore. But I in- 

that it is not congenital, but the effect 
of a "higher law," whose influence is felt 
throughout their whole career. This higher 
law is public opinion, of which theoretically 
human laws are the expression; but prac- 
tically these two powers are often in con- 
flict, and, when this is the case, public opi- 
nion nullifies the law of the land and tram- 
ples it in the dust. It is also often in 
conflict with the law of God, and scoffs at 
its penalties. It is the supreme dictator in 
modern society. It dictates the style of our 
houses, of our furniture, of our dress, of 
our manners, and pr< nearly all the 

laws which regulate our social intercourse. 

But we have only to do with it at present 
as it bears upon the education of the sexes, 
and in those particulars which contribute 
to the formation of moral and religious 
character. When it prescribes to boys and 
girls a different mode of dress and a differ- 



80 EDUCATION. 

ent style of manners, I do not dissent. This 
is all very becoming, and clearly within its 
province. It has nature and reason on its 
side. I only contest its authority when it 
presumes to erect a different standard of 
morals for boys. I have already shown the 
particulars in which it does so. In these 
respects it transcends its legitimate au- 
thority, and parents and teachers, and all 
who have the care of chirlden, should say, 
with Peter and the apostle, "W 7 e ought to 
obey God rather than man." This is the 
principle upon which all Christians should 
act. They must lay their reputation, and 
even themselves, out of view, and bring 
every thing to the test, whether it consists 
with the will of God. If it will not, it is 
wrong. The root of the evil we are de- 
ploring is here. Until it is eradicated, it 
will bear its natural fruits. Those who are 
intrusted with the training of children must 
recognize practically the truth which they 



EDUCATION. 81 

admit in theory, — namely, that the soul of 
a boy is as precious as the soul of a girl ; 
that a boy has no more right to swear, to 
get drunk, to profane the Sabbath, to be 
obscene in speech and licentious in conduct, 
than a girl ; that these vices are as hateful 
in the sight of God in the one as in the 
other. Every Christian parent recognizes 
these truths in theory; but how few 
reduce them to practice! Society insists 
upon freedom from these vices in the per- 
sons of our daughters, as the price of ad- 
mission within her charmed circle ; but it 
makes no such conditions with our sons ; 
and many who call themselves Christians 
respect more the verdict of society than 
the voice of God. I plead for a revolution 
of public opinion upon this subject. In 
the name of God, and for the sake of my 
sex, whose souls have so long been sacrificed 
in hecatombs upon the altar of this remorse- 



82 EDUCATION. 

less tyrant, I protest against his authority 
to change the laws of God. 

I appeal from the verdict of society to 
the judgment of God; and I call upon Chris- 
tian parents and teachers to second and 
sustain the appeal. 



THE FATHER HEAD OF THE FAMILY. 83 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FAMILY A DIVINE INSTITUTION, OF 
WHICH THE FATHER IS THE HEAD — THE 
FATHER, NOT THE MOTHER, THE PROPHET 
AND PRIEST OF THE FAMILY. 

"Singly and solely on the supposition that the 
spiritual life of the parents is transplanted into the 
children, does the communication of corporeal life 
become a blessing. The family -was God's first 
church." — TnoLUCK. 

St. Paul says, "Fathers, provoke not 
your children to wrath, but bring them up in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
Mark the peculiar phraseology of this pre- 
cept. It is the fathers, and not the mothers, 
to whom it is addressed. The father is the 
head of the family. The wife is directed to 
" submit herself to her own husband, as to 
the Lord." For the husband is the head of 
"the wife, even as Christ is the head of the 



84 THE FATHER THE HEAD 

church. Let the woman learn in silence, 
with all subjection. For I suffer not a 
woman to teach or to usurp authority over 
the man. For Adam was first formed, then 
Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the 
woman, being deceived, was in the trans- 
gression. If they will learn any thing, let 
them ask their husbands at home."* 

From these texts it is evident that the de- 
sign of the Almighty is that the father should 
be the prophet, priest, and king of the 
family. In temporal matters most men 
assert these prerogatives. They resent 
every intrusion of women into their spheres, 
and remand them to the subordinate place 
assigned them by the laws of God and man. 
But in religion this scriptural order is 
generally reversed. Most men renounce 
their spiritual prerogatives and retire si- 
lently into the ranks, advancing their wives 
to the prophetic and priestly offices. All 

* See 1 Corinthians xiv. 35. 



OF THE FAMILY. 85 

honor is due to the noble women who occupy 
the posts deserted by their recreant lords. 
God has honored their ministry, and " thou- 
sands shall rise up and call them blessed." 
But what shall be said of the fathers who 
desert their posts and leave their wives 
to wrestle alone against the world, the flesh, 
and the devil, by which their sons are sur- 
rounded and beset? 

If the officer who deserts his post in the 
face of the enemy is branded as a traitor 
and even forfeits his life, what shall be the 
doom of the unnatural father who betrays 
the high trust confided to him by the great 
"Captain of our salvation"? So many 
handsome things have been said and written 
about the influence of mothers in forming 
the characters of their children for time and 
eternity, that the world has come to think 
that this is peculiarly the office of the 
mother. But there is no warrant for this 
opinion in the word of God. It is a mere 



86 THE FATHER THE HEAD 

prescription, owing its authority to long use, 
and is but another example of the influence of 
the "higher law" in changing the laws of 
God. It is to fathers, specially and emi- 
nently, that God has given this great 
commission. And it is the neglect of this 
duty by so many fathers which is another 
and prolific cause why so few of our sons, 
in comparison of our daughters, are Chris- 
tians. Our daughters follow the example 
of their mothers, and our sons follow the 
example of their fathers. It is only in 
infancy that the son is subject to the mother, 
who often succeeds in depositing in the 
virgin soil of his young heart seeds which 
germinate and bear fruit in after-years. 
But so soon as the son is old enough to 
realize that he is a man in miniature, his 
highest ambition is to be a full-grown man, 
and in the mean time to be treated as such. 
He resents as an insult every insinuation 
that there is any thing girlish or feminine 



OF THE FAMILY. 87 

about him. His father, or some other man, 
becomes the beau ideal to which he aspires 
to conform his dress, his language, his sen- 
timents, and his habits. The father is the 
chief educator of the son, whether he will 
or not. It has been well said that, during 
the minority of the reason, imitation is the 
regent of the soul, and they who are least 
swayed by argument are most governed by 
example. The father's example will educate 
his sons; his conversation, his business, his 
opinions, his home, his associates, will edu- 
cate them. " The education of circumstances, 
insensible education, like insensible perspi- 
ration, is of more constant and powerful 
effect than that which is direct and apparent. 
It goes on at every instant of time. It goes 
on like time. You can neither stop it nor 
turn its course."* 

The example which the father sets his 
son, and the circumstances with which he 

* Anderson. 
10 



88 THE FATHER THE HEAD 

surrounds him, will, in all probability, deter- 
mine his fate. This is the general rule. 
The exceptions which can be pointed out do 
not nullify the rule. In some cases other 
influences prevail over the father's example, 
and occasionally the grace of God snatches 
a " brand from the burning." A venerable 
minister of God mentions the following case, 
which I cite in illustration of the principle 
for which I am contending. "I remember," 
he says, " once conversing with a man emi- 
nent for station, talents, and piety, who said 
to me, ' I owe every thing, under God, to the 
consistent piety of my father. When I was 
a young man, though I was not vicious, I 
was worldly; and, in order to get rid of all 
interference with my pursuits from religion, 
I wished to think it all mere profession and 
hypocrisy. For this purpose, I narrowly 
watched the conduct of my father ; for such 
was the height on which he stood as a 
professor of religion, I very naturally con- 



OF THE FAMILY. 89 

eluded that, if I could convict him of such 
inconsistency as amounted to a proof of 
hypocrisy, (and a very little thing would at 
that time have sufficed for the purpose,) I 
should have gained my end and have con- 
cluded that all piety was but a name and a 
delusion. But so thoroughly consistent was 
he that I found nothing at variance with 
his character as a Christian. This kept its 
hold upon me. I said to myself, There 
must be a reality here, and I must try to 
understand and feel it. For I have seen 
such meekness in a temper naturally irri- 
table, such comfort in the greatest agonies, 
and all this supported by such uniform 
devotion, that I must try and catch his 
spirit.' " 

Now, although this young man would 
have reasoned very illogically if he had 
concluded that Christianity was false because 
his father was a hypocrite, yet the case is a 
striking instance of the power of a father's 



90 THE FATHEE THE HEAD 

example. It is a very serious thought, that 
we who profess and call ourselves Christians 
are mirrors from which Christianity is 
reflected upon our worldly associates. And 
it is fearful to think that our children may 
be studying the evidences of Christianity in 
our examples. Oh, there was meaning, 
there was feeling, in the precept, " Fathers, 
bring up your children in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord." The words trans- 
lated nurture (jzcudud) and admonition 
(voyde&a), says Bloomfield, should be ren- 
dered education and discipline, the former 
term seeming to regard the instructory 
part of education, and the latter the correc- 
tive part, by forming their morals ; xuptou (in 
the Lord) being added to suggest that the 
whole of this education should be suitable 
to their Christian profession. 

"What we commonly call education is a 
one-sided thing. "The whole aim of it 
seems to be the development of mind, aban- 



OF THE FAMILY. 91 

doning the body to weakness and disease, 
and leaving the moral element to the 
dwarfed and shriveled condition of a para- 
lyzed limb. To develop the entire man, 
without unduly eliciting or depressing any 
one part of his constitution, is the great 
problem in education."* It not only seems 
to be forgotten that a sound body is the 
indispensable condition of healthy manifes- 
tations of mind, but the moral element in 
the human constitution is sometimes com- 
pletely ignored ; or, if recognized at all, it is 
educated by that false standard of morals, 
the law of honor, which is an expression of 
the opinions of men, and not of the will of 
God. Men educated by this standard may 
be useful and ornamental members of society ; 
they may be honest, truthful, brave, and 
high-toned gentlemen. For such qualities 
men are deservedly admired, applauded, 
and honored by their fellow-men. Such 

* Patriarchy. 
10* 



92 THE FATHER HEAD OF THE FAMILY. 

honors satisfy their ambition and are the 
motives of their conduct. They receive 
their reward. But, as water cannot rise 
higher than its source, their honors will be 
on a level with their motives. These have 
no regard to God, and he cannot reward 
them. He has declared that he will honor 
those only who honor him. Such an educa- 
tion is worldly and sensual, and the parents 
who thus "sow to the flesh shall reap 
corruption."* 

* See extract from Bishop Meade's Sermon in 
Appendix. 



EDUCATION. 93 



CHAPTER IV. 

EDUCATION. 

The end determines the means — No neutrals in the 
kingdom of Christ — Two conditions of success, 
precept and practice — Deeds only beget deeds, and 
life only kindles life — Example a perpetual ordi- 
nance — The first steps to drinking and gambling. 

The first point which should be settled 
by parents and guardians of children is, 
"What is the chief end of man? The end 
aimed at will determine the means to be 
used. If we may infer the end from the 
means generally used, we should conclude 
without hesitation that it was the riches, 
honors, and pleasures of this life. The 
habitual conversation of most persons would 
impress children with the belief that these 
are the great prizes of life. No man who 
calls himself a Christian would avow such a 
theory of life. Not many are conscious that 



94 EDUCATION. 

they are acting upon it. They "would be 
shocked at the imputation. And yet every 
impartial observer would be warranted in 
deducing the inference from their daily lives 
and from all their arrangements for their 
children. Many parents are evidently more 
solicitous that their children should dance 
and play and sing well — that they should 
take the first honors at school or college, 
and then make a brilliant match and a 
shining figure in the world — than that their 
souls should be saved. Not that they have 
ever deliberately counted the cost and made 
the choice. That would be a deliberate 
act of apostasy; and from that they recoil. 
They are not extremists. They think that 
the question between God and Mammon 
may be compromised. Accordingly, such 
persons live in a sort of neutral territory, — 
on the dividing-line between the kingdom 
of Christ and the domain of the god of this 
world. From this convenient position they 



EDUCATION. 95 

can make incursions into either kingdom, 
according to the frame of mind they happen 
to be in or the attractions that solicit them. 
Such persons, having no fixed principles, 
have no systematic method of managing 
their children, and, if they are saved, they 
will be miracles of grace. In the war 
between Christianity and the world there 
can be no neutrals. Christianity abhors 
neutrals as nature abhors a vacuum. This 
principle is laid down explicitly in the 
following texts : — " Ye cannot serve God and 
Mammon;" "The friendship of the world is 
enmity against God." 

Every father who regards the salvation 
of the soul as the chief end of education 
may cherish a hope of success upon two 
conditions : — First, that he teach his son 
the true theory of morals, and, second, that 
he illustrate his theory by his own example. 
The will of God as revealed in the Bible 
is the true standard of morals. Every 



96 EDUCATION. 

thing which conflicts with this rule is wrong. 
Consequently, the "law of honor," which 
permits a boy to commit sins which would 
disgrace his sister, is false and mischievous. 
It is a usurpation of the divine prerogative, 
and an act of open rebellion. He can teach 
his son that he has no more right to swear, 
to be drunken, to gamble, to be licentious, 
or to violate any other commandment of 
God than his sister has. 

The recognition of this truth would be 
a most important step in the right direc- 
tion, and it would do much toward raising 
young men to the moral level of young 
women, and facilitating the salvation of 
their souls. But the theory of morals, if 
it is contradicted by the example of the 
teacher, instead of doing good, may be hurt- 
ful. Bishop Butler, than whom there is 
no higher authority, says, "Going over the 
theory of virtue in one's thoughts, talking 
well and drawing fine pictures of it, is so 



EDUCATION. 97 

far from certainly contributing to form a 
habit of it, that it may harden the mind in 
a contrary course, and render it gradually 
more insensible, — that is, form a habit of in- 
sensibility to all moral distinctions." This 
is eminently true when the theory of virtue 
is contradicted by the practice of the teacher. 
In developing the moral character, example 
is every thing. Words beget only words. 
" Example filling up all the intervals of 
formal instruction acts with the silent con- 
stancy and power of a law of nature." Hence 
we are not surprised at the unfruitfulness 
of mere religious instruction. It is a mere 
mockery in a father to teach his son that it 
is wrong to swear, to proiane the Sabbath, 
to get drunk, or to gamble, if he contradicts 
his precepts by his practice. And how 
often we see the precepts and the prayers 
of a pious mother counteracted by the 
example of the father ! In vain does she 
teach her son that no drunkard shall inherit 



98 EDUCATION. 

the kingdom of God, if he sees his father 
drunk. It is to little purpose that she 
warns him that moderate drinking is the 
direct road to drunkenness, and that absti- 
nence from the use of intoxicating drinks as a 
beverage is the only absolute security that he 
will never be a drunkard, if he sees his father 
indulge in habitual moderate drinking and 
tempt others with solicitations to join him. 

As moderate drinking is the fountain 
from which all the bitter waters of drunken- 
ness flow, so the source of the evils of gam- 
bling is the witnessing the example and 
learning the use of the tools of the gambler. 

I know there are many who will take 
issue with me, and say that there is no harm 
in playing cards merely for amusement. 
Some parents hold this opinion, and act 
upon it in the training of their children, 
maintaining that it is perfectly innocent so 
long as they do not play for money. This 
opinion originates in a misunderstanding of 



EDUCATION. 99 

the philosophy of the whole subject. It is 
not the love of gain that is the first in- 
centive to gambling, but the love of excite- 
ment and the love of triumph and distinc- 
tion. It has been well remarked by a late 
eminent American author, that there are 
philosophical reasons why gaming is so fas- 
cinating an amusement. A game of min- 
gled chance and skill bears a strong resem- 
blance to human life. Providence has made 
our success in this life depend upon a com- 
bination of what seems to us chance and 
skill. Our conduct is guided not altogether 
by chance, for there would be no scope 
left for endeavor, enterprise, and hope; 
nor is it all left to struggle, for then there 
would be no peace from the strifes of rest- 
lessness and ambition. Therefore it is that 
life is made to be a combination of chance 
and skill, that all the passions of hope 
and fear, ambition and emulation, may be 

called into exercise, as well as the active 
11 



100 EDUCATION. 

and executive powers. Thus it is that a 
game of hazard is a miniature of human 
life, and exerts the same kind of interest; 
its changes and uncertainties call up the 
same alternations of hope and fear, of ele- 
vation and depression. 

The original incentive to gaming is not, 
as many seem to suppose, mere covetousness. 
As in human life, so in gambling, avarice 
comes in at a later stage. I was much struck 
with a remark ascribed in a late newspaper 
to a money-making man, who said, "You 
ministers are mistaken when you assume that 
it is avarice which makes us so eager in the 
scramble for money. It is not so ; for some- 
times we care very little for the money itself : 
but we prize success ; we are unwilling to be 
beaten in the contest for wealth." The love 
of excitement and the ambition of beating an 
antagonist are the primary inducements to 
gambling ; but when the habit is once formed, 
covetousness enters as an element into the 



EDUCATION. 101 

combination, and the passion often becomes 
so inveterate that all innocent joys, the 
companionship of books, the love of wife 
and children, and all the bliss of home, be- 
come flat and insipid. 

When children are encouraged or allowed 
to gratify the love of excitement and the 
passion for triumph in games of cards, they 
are on the direct road to gambling. As 
the appetite of the toper gradually demands 
stronger and deeper potations, so play for 
mere amusement gradually ceases to in- 
terest, and demands a new eloment to give 
zest to the game. From the same news- 
paper I take another extract, which forcibly 
illustrates the evils which arise from the 
knowledge of the use of the tools of the 
gambler : — "Our sons are not always to re- 
main at home. We are a traveling people. 
We have journeyed more than our fathers; 
and our children will journey more than 
we. We know not into what company they 



102 EDUCATION. 

will fall. But, in all probability, they will 
be met by the gambler in the guise of the 
gentleman. They will be asked to play at 
cards. If they can reply, ' "We do not know 
one card from another/ they will be armed 
as with a coat of mail against the tempter. 
The man who after that confession would 
press them to play would at once unmask 
himself as a professional gambler. 

" On the other hand, look at the young 
man who has learned to play for amusement. 
He is traveling in a steamboat, or staying 
at a hotel. Time hangs heavy on his hands. 
He is invited, by a well-dressed, smooth- 
spoken person, to take a hand,— just to pass 
the time. He may be disposed to decline ; 
but how shall he excuse himself? He tries 
to get up some sort of inoffensive apology ; 
but when met with the question, ' You do 
play sometimes, do you not?' he cannot 
say no. And when the next question fol- 
lows, — 'What are your objections to playing 



EDUCATION. 103 

with me?' — the refusal begins to take the 
shape of a personal affront to a ' gentleman 
of honor,' it may be. He then begins to see 
visions of pistols flitting not far off; and so 
he consents. The party is made up. The 
game begins, only for amusement. But now 
it is suggested that they want some refresh- 
ments, and they may just as well add a 
little to the life of the game by playing 
who shall pay for them. . If the young 
man hesitates, he is laughed out of his 
scruples. Ashamed to stand alone and affect 
to be better than his companions, he yields ; 
and for the first time in his life he gambles. 
That seemed a little step for him to take, 
but it was a step on a fearful path. And 
if he also drinks the mocking glass, before 
that evening is closed (and very likely it 
will not end before daybreak) he may go 
on from the value of the refreshments to 

double or treble that amount. These steps 
11* 



101 EDr;^:: 

are all easy after the first one.* They 
involve no other principles than the first, 
and may generally all be expected, if not 
immediately, yet in dne time. Which was 
the first step ? "Was it not the learning how 
to use the tools of the gambler? And 
who is responsible for that first step? It 
be his father, his brother, or even his 
\ oi other young lady, who tempted 
and taught him to play for amusement. I 
have myself s^: 7~-^g men induced to 
learn to play at cards for the sake of play- 
ing with young ladies for amusement, and 
who from that beginning have gone 
by step along the way just delineated, and 
are now inveterate gamblers. I warned 
those young ladies of the probable results 
of those first lessons at the time. They 
laughed at my apprehensions ; and in after- 
years I have heard those young ladies 

* u C'est le premier pas qui coute." 



EDUCATION. 105 

speak with disgust and horror of the habits 
of those very men, without seeming to see 
the slightest connection between effects and 
causes separated by so long a chain of 
events. 



106 THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DIFFERENT RELATIONS OF THE SEXES 
TO THE FAMILY. 

"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? 
what shall we drink ? and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed? But seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
his righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
unto you." — Matt. vii. 13. 

"We have seen in a previous chapter 
that upon men devolves the solution of the 
problems, What shall we eat ? what shall we 
drink ? and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? 
That these are often very perplexing prob- 
lems, is a matter of general experience. 
That they keep many men out of the king- 
dom of God, I do not doubt. Our Saviour 
expressly includes the "cares of this world" 
among the thorns which choke the good 
seed and render it unfruitful ; and the apostle 
with great emphasis warns us of the per- 



THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 107 

nicious effects of "cares" upon the religious 
life. Nothing is more common than to 
hear men plead these facts in justification 
of their inattention to their religious duties. 
Every one must have heard them say, 
"I have not time to go to church, to 
read the Bible, or even to say my prayers. 
I have so many things to think about and 
to do that I cannot spare the time to attend 
to these things now ; I hope to have more 
leisure at some future time. At present 
it is impossible. I am behindhand in every 
thing. To stop a plow or take a hand or 
a horse from the field at this busy season 
would ruin me." Such men often quote, 
with an air of mingled reverence and tri- 
umph, that part of the fourth command- 
ment which says, Six days shalt thou 
labor. And when you propose to them to 
go to church on Sunday, they quote the 
other member of the sentence, viz., "the 
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 



108 THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 

God : in it thou shalt do no manner of work, 
thou, nor thy servant, nor thy cattle." 

They are suddenly smitten with the 
tenderest compassion for servants and cattle, 
— a compassion which they never seemed to 
feel when these were wanted on a matter of 
worldly business or a party of pleasure.* 
Women, on the other hand, being less dis- 
tracted by the cares which engross men, are 
generally glad when it is said, "Let us go 
to the house of the Lord;" are almost the 
only worshipers on weekdays, and have 
been known to be constrained to elect the 
vestry, which could but seldom be got 
together except on Sundays after service. 
But it may be said, on the other hand, that 
women have their cares as well as men. I 
freely concede the fact. But they generally 
are not so engrossing as those of men. They 
are comparatively petty cares, often very 

* Such as sending their wagons to market on 
Saturday, knowing that they could not return before 
Sunday. 



TIIE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 109 

vexatious, but not so absorbent of time and 
thought as those of men. The cares of 
women are generally of such a nature as 
drive them to religion for consolation instead 
of repelling them from it. Not having tho 
same outward resources as men, religion 
supplies the place of those pleasurable 
excitements which men find in games, in 
narcotics, in the field, in the forum, in the 
pursuits of wealth, and in the paths of 
glory. I speak generally; and there are 
exceptions to all general rules. Our Saviour 
reproved Martha for being "careful and 
troubled about many things" and neglecting 
the one thing needful; and Martha has 
doubtless had her followers in every age, 
who have been " cumbered about much 
serving." Martha's case was a peculiar 
one. She was a housekeeper, and Jesus 
her guest. If ever there was a time to 
disincumber one's self of much serving, that 
was such a time. It might have been the 



110 THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 

only time they ever would see Jesus and 
learn how to gain the "one thing needful." 
And yet she was so absorbed with house- 
keeping that she reproved Mary for sitting 
at the feet of Jesus instead of helping her 
in her household cares. 

This case only proves that when women 
are careful and troubled about many things 
they will just as certainly neglect the one 
thing needful as men in like circum- 
stances. But, concluding that the different 
relations of the sexes to the world is one 
cause of the evil we are deploring, it 
remains to inquire if there be a remedy for 
this evil, and if so, what it is. 

I do not propose to change the relations 
of the sexes to the world, — to dethrone man 
from his dominion and enthrone woman in 
his place. For it has been well said that so 
long as woman retains her distinctive con- 
stitution and " is by that fact unfitted for 
certain extra-domestic spheres, no human 



THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. Ill 

power could place her in them without 
immediately beginning to develop a train 
of social, and therefore of personal, evils. 
That she has a reserved power in heT nature 
beyond that which the domestic function 
requires, and which has never been deve- 
loped and applied, may be. But let that 
power take a direction which would ignore 
or disparage home, and nature would 
reassert its neglected claims till things 
returned to their natural channel."* If 
this exchange of relations were possible, it 
would only transfer woman's privileges to 
man and place her under the disabilities 
from which he was relieved. It will suffice 
to show that the barriers in man's way to 
heaven are not insurmountable. This is 
proved by the fact that they have been 
surmounted by thousands of men, many of 
whom are now manfully fighting under 
Christ's banner on earth, while many more 

* Harris's Patriarchy. 
12 



112 THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 

are resting from their labors in heaven. 
These are not peculiar to any age or class of 
men. They represent every class and every 
age of the Christian era. Among them were 
statesmen like Washington, lawyers like 
Hale ; soldiers like Havelock and Vickars, 
physicians like Boerhaave ; philosophers like 
Butler and Newton, merchants like Brans- 
ford, Reeve, and Crane,* tradesmen like 
Normand Smith, and farmers like Kobert 
Haldane and the late John Gray of "Tra- 
veler's Rest." These men were charged with 
as many cares, beset by as many temptations 
as others, and their duties made as large 
" * " ~ 

* Three citizens of Richmond, Virginia, — an Episco- 
palian, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist, — men who re- 
garded themselves as stewards of the Lord and were 
rich in good works. The author owes them this tribute 
for co-operation in labors of love. Frederic Bransford, 
with whom of the three the author was most intimate, 
was a warden of St. James's Church, and one of the 
finest models of a Christian man. His heart was as 
large as the world, and his hand "open as day to 
melting charity." The Rev. Dr. Burrows has paid a 
beautiful tribute to the memory of James C. Crane. 



THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 113 

a demand upon their time and thoughts as 
those of other men of like callings. If the 
cares of this life and the deceitfulness of 
riches did not choke the good seed in their 
hearts, — if they resisted the temptations 
which assailed them, and could spare time 
and thought for their duties to Grod, — then 
other men in like circumstances cannot 
plead these things in justification of their 
ungodliness. 

Indeed, if there be any occupation 
whose duties are incompatible with our 
duties to our souls and to God, it is 
unlawful, and should be immediately aban- 
doned. We had better suffer the loss of 
any earthly interest than the loss of our 
souls. It were better that the state should 
suffer, that our families should suffer, that 
ourselves should starve, — if such issues could 
be made, — than that we should lose our 
souls. No rational man should hesitate a 
moment between such alternatives. But 



114 THE CAEES OF THIS LIFE. 

the truth, is, there is no incompatibility 
between our temporal and eternal interests. 
Diligence in business is a Christian duty, as 
well as fervency in spirit. There is perfect 
harmony between our duties to God, to 
ourselves, to our families, to the state, and 
to society. Christianity recognizes these 
relations and prescribes the duties which 
arise from them. The truth is, self-interest 
well understood coincides exactly with our 
Christian duties. Godliness hath the pro- 
mise of the life that now is, as well as of that 
which is to come. 

Indeed, the only possible way of insuring 
an adequate supply of the necessaries and 
comforts of life is by seeking first the king- 
dom of God and his righteousness. "Take 
no thought," says our Saviour, "for your 
life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall 
drink, nor yet for your body, what ye 
shall put on." The word "thought" when 
the Bible was translated meant anxiety. 



THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 115 

Thought (in the modern use) about the 
future is right; anxiety is wrong.* There 
is a degree of thinking about the things of 
this life which is a duty; but it should not 
lead to anxiety and distrust nor take 
time from religious duties. Our Saviour 
warns us against over-anxiety about our 
temporal concerns. " This he enforces by 
four arguments of great power and beauty." 
The first is that God has given us life, a far 
greater blessing than meat. He has given 
us bodies fearfully and wonderfully made. 
Shall not He who has given us these greater 
blessings confer the less ? " Is not the life 
more than meat, and the body than raiment?" 
He then points us to the birds that are 
flying in the air, and to the flowers that are 
blooming at our feet, and makes these the 
ministers of a beautiful and instructive lesson. 
" Behold," he says, " the fowls of the .air; 

* See Barnes, in loco. See also Trench and Bacon 

on the original meaning of the word thought. 
12* 



116 THE CARES OF THIS LIFE. 

for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor 
gather into barns : yet your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are ye not much better 
than they ? And why take ye thought for 
raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, 
how they grow; they toil not, neither do 
they spin : and yet Solomon in all his glory 
was not arrayed like one of these. Where- 
fore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into 
the oven, shall he not much more clothe 
you, ye of little faith?" If God feeds 
the birds and clothes the lilies, can we 
doubt that he will feed and clothe us? 
Therefore he repeats the warning, "Take no 
thought, (be not over-anxious) saying, What 
shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or 
wherewithal shall we be clothed? For 
after all these things do the Gentiles seek." 
The heathen, the men of the world, who 
have no faith in God's providence, perplex 
themselves with these problems. But you 



THE CAKES OF THIS LIFE. 117 

know God. You have his promise to rely 
upon. You know that he knows that you 
need these things, and that he has promised 
to provide them. Therefore let not these ap- 
prehensions predominate in your thoughts. 
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
his righteousness, and all these things shall 
be added unto you." In these words we 
have God's bond, written and sealed with 
the blood of his Son, guaranteeing the 
supply of our wants. The condition of this 
bond is that we seek first his kingdom and 
righteousness. Thus we perceive that the 
men of the world who plead the pressure of 
business as a reason for postponing their 
duties to God, mistake the method of 
insuring what they aim at. All their 
thoughts and schemes and toils may fail. 
They are dependent upon God for every 
pulse that beats, every blessing they enjoy. 
All their blessings are so many good gifts 
coming down from their Father in heaven, — 



118 THE CAEES OF THIS LIFE. 

as much, so as if they received them directly 
from his hands. No wisdom, nor thought, 
nor power can achieve their independence 
of him. We see, therefore, the folly of 
seeking our happiness out of Gocl, and the 
wisdom and blessedness of seeking first his 
kingdom and righteousness, and thus se- 
curing the pledge of his infinite wisdom, 
power, and goodness to supply all our wants. 
"First in our affections, first in the objects 
of pursuit, first in the feelings and associa- 
tions of each morning, be the desire and 
the aim for heaven. And in life and in 
death all will be well."* 

* Barnes. 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 119 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE LAW OF HONOR. 

"How can ye believe which receive honor one of 
another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God 
only ?" — John v. 44. 

" The laws that men generally refer their actions to, 
to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to 
be these three: — 1. The divine law ; 2. The civil law; 
3. The law of opinion or reputation, if I may so call 
it." — Locke. 

" The rules of life by which men are ordinarily 
governed are the law of honor, the law of the land, and 
the Scriptures." — Paley. 

11 Men sometimes act, not from moral virtue, but from 
respect for the judgments which other men will pass 
upon their actions. This is to act from honor." — 
Montesquieu. 

Our Saviour, in the text quoted from the 
Gospel of John, recognizes the two great 
motives of human action and the two great 
laws by which men regulate their conduct. 
These motives are, the honor that cometh from 
God and the honor that cometh from man. 
The laws are, the law of God and the law 



120 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

of honor. The three eminent philosophers, 
Locke, Paley, and Montesquieu, without re- 
ference to the authority of the Saviour, but 
each from his own stand-point as an inde- 
pendent observer, have also recognized the 
general prevalence and great sway of the law 
of honor, as hinted at by Him who made the 
human heart and therefore knew what was in 
man. And I think that every one who ob- 
serves attentively his fellow-men with a view 
of discovering the motives of their conduct, 
will be convinced that the law of honor is 
the general principle by which most men 
judge of truth and error, of right and wrong. 
The law of honor, in its common accepta- 
tion, is restricted to a set of rules agreed 
upon by men who recognize the duel as the 
arbiter of their differences and the touch- 
stone of honor. This seems to have been 
Paley 's idea when he defined the law of 
honor to be a " system of rules constructed 
by people of fashion to facilitate their 






THE LAW OF HONOE. 121 

intercourse with each other, and for no 
other purpose." Accordingly, the law of 
honor has been the subject of a vast deal of 
ridicule and denunciation, from Falstaff's 
catechism and Hume's essays down to the 
latest judicial charge, legislative enact- 
ment, and anathema of press and pulpit.* 

It is generally conceded that these 
anathemas have had very little effect in 
correcting the evils at which they are 
aimed. The truth is, these evils are the 
morbid outgrowth of a principle implanted 

* "Honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor 
prick me off when I come on ? How then ? Can honor 
set a leg ? No. Or an arm ? No. Or take away the 
grief of a wound ? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, 
then ? No. What is honor ? A word. What is in 
that word ? Honor. What is that honor ? Air. A 
trim reckoning ! — Who hath it ? He that died o' Wed- 
nesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 
Is it insensible, then ? Yea, to the dead. But will it 
not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction 
will not suffer it: — therefore I'll none of it. Honor 
is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism." — 
Shakspeare, Henry IV. 



122 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

in the human constitution by the Creator. 
This principle is ineradicable, and therefore 
the blows aimed at it fail of effect. When 
you lay the axe to the root of the tree, you 
not only destroy the fruit, but you kill the 
tree. And so if you were to root out from 
the human mind the principle from which 
the law of honor springs, you would 
unhinge the moral constitution given us by 
our Creator, and introduce more evils than 
your remedy cured. "We must distinguish 
between the root and the morbid excrescences 
which have been grafted upon it. It is not 
extirpation, but pruning and training, which 
is the more rational treatment. All mental 
philosophers recognize among the innate 
principles of our nature the desire of esteem, 
the desire of property, and of society, which 
are the chief springs of human activity. 
The desire of esteem is not only innocent, 
but even useful and beneficial, in its effects. 
Montesquieu says, " Men often act, not from 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 123 

moral virtue, but from respect for the 
judgments which other men will pass upon 
their actions. This," he adds, "is to act 
from honor." This is true, to a certain 
extent, of men everywhere, but it is specially 
characteristic of civilized, and pre-eminently 
of modern, society. It is undoubtedly in 
our country the strongest motive of human 
conduct. One of our old divines has drawn 
such a lifelike picture of its workings that 
I cannot do so well as by reproducing it : — 
" We may see it budding forth in man's first 
infancy, (before the use of reason or speech ;) 
even little children being ambitious to be 
made much of, maintaining among them- 
selves petty competitions about little punc- 
tilios of honor.* We may observe it 
growing with age, and waxing stronger with 
increase of knowledge; that the maturest 
years do most relish it; that men of the 

* "Vide ego et expertus sum relantem parvulum." — 
Augustine. 

13 



124 THE LAW 0? HONOR. 

best parts do most zealously affect and 
stand upon it; that they who most struggle 
with it do most feel its weight, — how difficult 
it is to restrain, how impossible to extin- 
guish it. The philosopher, with all his 
reasons, cannot persuade it away; the 
anchoret, with all his austerities, cannot 
starve it. No affliction can suppress, no 
retirement shun it. 'Tis a spirit that not 
only haunts courts and palaces, but frequents 
schools and cloisters, yea, creeps into cot- 
tages and prisons, and dogs men into deserts, 
so close it sticks to our nature. For honor 
the soldier undergoes toil and hazard, the 
scholar beats his brains, the merchant 
adventures so far, the artisan spends his 
sweat and stretches his sinews. For it 
great armies march and great battles are 
fought. The chief reason of all this 
scuffling for power — this searching for 
knowledge — this scraping and scrambling 
for wealth — would seem to be that men 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 125 

would live in some credit, would raise 
themselves above contempt." 

There have been in all ages individuals 
who affected to be superior to this weakness, 
and professed to be influenced solely by a 
sense of duty.* Cicero, long ago, said of 
such persons, " Negligere quid de se quisque 
sentiat arrogantis est et dissoluti." But 
as his authority, being merely a pagan 
moralist, may be of little weight with 
Christian people, it will be more pertinent 
to quote Tertullian, who, according to Bar- 
row, called such philosophers " negotiatores 
famoe," (merchants for fame,) whose cunning 
in their trade led them to beat down the 
price of this commodity in the market, that 
they might more easily engross it to them- 
selves. 

If we were to abstract from human 
history all the deeds to which the love of 

* " Nihil opinionis causa, omnia conscientia faciam." 
— Seneca. 



126 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

glory prompted, many of its brightest pages 
would be left blank, or turn black and 
bloody, — many of the greatest lights of the 
world would vanish from the moral firma- 
ment, and civilization would go back many 
degrees, like the sun upon the dial of Ahaz. 
It is a prerogative of the Almighty 
Disposer of events to bring good out of evil, 
and to make the vices, as well as the virtues, 
of man praise him. Our appetites and 
desires, even when indulged to excess, are 
made to promote the progress of society; 
and great crimes, as in the case of the 
foreign slave-trade, turn out to be " links in 
a chain of causes upon which hang glorious 
results." The perpetrators of these crimes 
are none the less guilty because the "Di- 
vinity that shapes our ends" has, by a 
wondrous alchemy, educed good out of their 
evil. Joseph's brethren, moved with envy, 
sold him into slavery ; and yet, when they 
witnessed and felt the splendid issue of their 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 127 

crime, they did not extenuate, but acknow- 
ledged and bewailed it. It was the Lord's 
doing, and was marvellous in their eyes. 
And so, if we concede that vanity, ambition, 
and even duelling, one of the fruits of the 
"law of honor," of a morbid sensitiveness to 
public opinion, do check other evils, it will 
not follow that they are right. Humility 
and charity would have accomplished the 
same ends in a much higher degree; but in 
the absence of Christian principles, evils are 
made to counteract each other, as wicked 
men are employed to punish other men more 
wicked than they. The world is making a 
constant approximation toward the millen- 
nial state. Modern society, bad as it is, 
is nevertheless greatly in advance of the 
most classic antiquity. Vice has a much 
greater dread of being seen. It hides itself 
from the light. The mysterious power of a 
semi-Christianized public opinion is abroad, 
penetrating where the civil laws cannot 

13* 



128 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

follow it, and "exercising over society an 
influence more delicate and minute than that 
which belongs to the legislature." It compels 
vice to fly from the public eye, or "put on 
disguises which, though hypocritical, yet 
add to the decorum of manners."* 

"We are acting our part on the stage of 
the world in the presence of two great wit- 
nesses, — "the eye of God, looking upon the 
heart, and the eye of man, looking upon the 
outward appearance." Both of these wit- 
nesses are forming their opinion of us. It 
is a matter of vital importance that we 
define clearly the nature and the amount of 
allegiance due from us to these powers 
claiming jurisdiction over our conduct. We 
are not at liberty to ignore either of them. 
Some men have taught that we are under no 
obligations to the law of honor; but practi- 
cally no such man can be found, except 
in some Utopian commonwealth. In theory 

* Balmes. 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 129 

nearly all men acknowledge the paramount 
authority of the law of God ; but in fact the 
world is full of proofs that man, and not 
the Lord, is its god. 

The attempt to drive men to the utter 
repudiation of the law of honor is so contrary 
to the word of God and to the moral consti- 
tution he has given us, that it does more 
harm than good.* The truth is, there is 
no conflict between the law of God and the 
law of honor upon many points. 

"We are not forbidden to desire the good 
opinion of our fellows in regard to things 
lawful, laudable, or indifferent. 

On the contrary, we are commanded to 

* " There is a blameless love of fame springing from 
desire of justice, 
When a man has featly won and fairly claimed hia 

honors ; 
And then fame cometh as encouragement to the 

inward consciousness of merit, 
Gladdening by the kindliness and thanks where- 
withal his labors are rewarded." 

Proverbial Philosophy. 



130 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

respect and to desire it. It is an instrument 
of good, an aid to virtue, and one of its 
legitimate rewards. The chief texts bearing 
upon this point have been so truly and 
beautifully expounded by Barrow that I 
cannot resist the temptation to report his 
criticism in his own words. He says, "Wfc 
are commanded to walk decently, which 
implies a regard to men's opinions; to 
provide things honest in the sight of all 
men, — not only things good in substance, 
but goodly in appearance. St. Paul exhorts 
us to mind, not only such things as are true, 
just, and pure, but also whatsoever things 
are venerable, apt to beget respect, — what- 
soever things are lovely, gracious in men's 
eyes and esteem, — whatsoever things are of 
good report (well reputed of). He requires 
not only, if there be any virtue, but if there 
be any praise, (any thing much approved in 
common esteem,) that we should mind such 
things. Thus we perceive that Holy Scrip- 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 131 

turc does not teach us to slight honor, but 
in its just measure to esteem and prize it." 
In regard to things indifferent in the eye of 
God and to points in which the law of God 
and the law of honor coincide, no difficulty 
can arise. It is only when these two laws 
cross each other that there is a conflict of 
jurisdiction. I have in a former chapter 
marked several of these points, the most 
prominent of which is the different standards 
of morals which men have established for 
boys and girls and for men and women. 
When the law of honor gives to men a 
dispensation to commit sins which disgrace 
women and drive them from society, it 
usurps the prerogatives of God. There are, 
doubtless, social reasons for the distinction 
which men make. All things have a reason 
for being, and have their uses. Even 
duelling and the passions which lead to it 
have their uses. Men who do not feel the 
force of moral obligations are held in check 



132 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

by such means, and "evils are made to 
counteract each other, as in another depart- 
ment of God's works one kind of wild beast 
destroys another."* 

But the question is not whether these 
social arrangements have their uses, but 
whether God recognizes such distinctions. 
I maintain that he does not. When, amid 
the thunders and lightnings of Mount Sinai, 
God said, "Thou shalt have none other gods 
but me. Thou shalt not take the name of 
the Lord thy God in vain. Kemember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy. Thou shalt 
not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 
Thou shalt not covet," he spoke to man as 
well as to woman. Indeed, the phraseology 
of the tenth commandment, " Thou shalt not 

* "We ignorantly despise and contrive means to 
destroy many birds who devour our vegetables, without 
considering that they rid us of a much greater evil, in 
destroying millions of mice and noxious insects. So 
beautiful is the doctrine of compensation in all the 
objects of nature!" — Professor Jaeger. 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 133 

covet thy neighbor's wife," shows that man 
was first in his thought, although the reason 
of the rule embraces woman also. It is as 
certain that the man who breaks these 
commandments will be damned in the next 
world as that the guilty woman is damned 
by public opinion in this. 

These things ought not so to be. I move 
an amendment to the law of honor. God, 
and not man, is the lord paramount. In 
the language of the lawyers, man is only 
tenant paravail, or, at most, but a mesne 
lord.* According to the theory of earthly 
monarchies, the king is the fountain of 
honor; and, in the words of Lord Bacon, "to 
be banished from his presence is the greatest 
eclipse of honor that can be; and no man," 
he says, "who hath any good blood in him 

* "The king was styled lord paramount. A. was 
both tenant and lord, or was but a mesne lord. And 
B. was called tenant paravail, or the lowest tenant, 
seeing he was supposed to make avail or profit of the 
land." — Blackstone. 



134 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

will commit an act that shall cast him into 
that darkness that he may not behold his 
sovereign's face." 

According to the theory of Christianity, 
there is a " King of kings." Heaven is his 
throne, and this earth is but his footstool. 
He is clothed with honor and majesty, and 
decked with light as with a garment. 
There is a rainbow about his throne like an 
emerald; out of it proceed lightnings and 
thunderings and voices ; before it is a sea of 
glass ; around it are four-and-twenty elders 
clothed in white raiment, with crowns of 
gold upon their heads, and ten thousand 
times ten thousand and thousands of thou- 
sands of angels, with harps, singing, 
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and blessing." 

Such is the picture of the court of heaven 
drawn by him " who saw the Apocalypse." 
Here is a Monarch indeed, — the only one 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 135 

of whom it can be said, "Thy throne, 
King, is for ever and ever. A sceptre of 
righteousness is the sceptre of thy king- 
dom." Access to His presence is an honor 
infinitely higher than access to the courts 
of all the kings on earth ; and banishment 
from His presence would be a total eclipse 
of the sun. May we not, with a deeper 
significance, apply the words of Bacon? — "I 
should think that no man who has any good 
blood in him will commit an act that shall 
cast him into that darkness that he may not 
behold his sovereign's face." But we cannot 
fully sympathize with this illustration. "We 
do not live under a monarchy. Ours is 
"the kingdom of the people." The theory 
of our government is, that the people is 
sovereign. They are the fountain of honor. 
Everywhere in Christendom, but especially 
in its free states, the " great antagonist of 
heaven's Almighty King" is the majesty of 
man's opinion. We are under special 

14 



136 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

temptations to regard the voice of the people 
as the voice of God.* But it is not the 
mass of the people that is the fountain of 
honor to most men. There are not many 
who aspire to the prizes which are the 
gifts of all the people. There are many- 
little rills flowing from the great fountain 
of honor through our political, ecclesiastical, 
and social organizations, and forming lesser 
fountains. Each political division, social 
circle, society, club, school, college, pro- 
fession, and trade is an example. And 
then every individual has an orbit in 
which he moves. The lawyer, the physi- 
cian, the clergyman, and the scholar has 
each his sphere, which does not coincide with 
any of these divisions or circles, but inter- 
sects them all. Now, each of these divisions, 

* There is a sense in which the proverb " Vox 
populi, vox Dei" is true; for instance, in the sense of 
the famous rule, Semper ubique, ab omnibus. 
" The people's voice is odd : 
It is and it is not the voice of God." 

Pope's Imitations of Horace, B. 2, Ep. 1. 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 137 

circles, and spheres is a little commonwealth, 
having its common law, which is an expres- 
sion of the public opinion of these little 
imperia in imperio. 

It has been said by a great philosopher, 
that there is scarcely any man so floating 
and superficial in his understanding but that 
he hath some reverenced propositions, which 
are to him the principles upon which he 
bottoms his reasonings, and by which he 
judges of truth and error, of right and 
wrong. Now, I am convinced from observa- 
tion that the principle by which most men 
unconsciously judge of truth and error — of 
right and wrong — is the opinion of those 
whose company they keep and who are the 
sources of their honors and their profits. 

The great question with them is not what 
is right, but what will "they say" What 
"they say" is the "law of honor." Many 
men had rather run the risk of being shot 
than to be laughed at; and there are some 



138 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

who would march to the mouth of a cannon 
with firm nerves and unblanched cheek who 
will quail before the sneer of derision or 
the finger of scorn pointed by some worthless 
fellow whose animal courage, stimulated by 
alcohol, keeps him within the pale of honor 
falsely so called. The conclusion of the 
whole matter is that it is not the voice of 
the whole people, nor even of a state, nor 
district, nor county, but often of a club, and 
sometimes of the frequenters of a grog- 
shop, that is preferred to the voice of God. 
I can command no words to describe — no 
image to illustrate — such astounding infatu- 
ation. "Why, if all mankind were to call us 
by acclamation to the sovereignty of the 
material universe, and with one voice chant 
our praises, — if the trees had tongues, and 
were to clap their hands, — if the very stones 
were to cry out, — if all "nature should 
become animated and vocal" and join the 
swelling chorus, — it would be an act of 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 139 

unspeakable "madness of the will" to prefer 
such honors to the honor that cometh from 
God. 

And yet men who would resent, as an 
insult to their understandings, the impu- 
tation of infidelity, habitually prefer the 
approbation of their associates to the appro- 
bation of God. The explanation of this 
conduct is the fact that the men of the 
world do not realize the presence of God. 
This is proved by the fact that they are 
often restrained from the commission of sin 
by the presence of a person whom they 
respect. Every clergyman who has mixed 
freely with men has had them beg his 
pardon for inadvertently swearing in his 
presence, without a thought that they were 
also in the presence of God, who had com- 
manded them with so much solemnity not 
to "take his name in vain." And so they 
often sin behind the veil of night, because it 
conceals them from the eye of man, without 

14* 



140 THE LAW OF HOSOR. 

any apparent consciousness that "the dark- 
ness and the light to (rod are both alike." 

The truth is, the natural man has no 
perception of spiritual things. He sees 
only by the light of his natural faculties. 
These must be supernaturally illuminated 
before he can discern the supernatural 
world. Until the eyes of his understanding 
are enlightened, the things of the eternal 
world are to him "like sounds to the deaf 
or colors to the blind." He is like a man 
groping in the dark and feeling his way by 
what touches his senses. Such a man will 
pass through the most beautiful scenery 
that ever gladdened the eye, without the 
least emotion. He may believe that it 
surrounds him ; but he does not see it, and 
cannot sympathize with those who do. But 
when the sun rises and scatters the vapors 
that veiled the face of nature, and all its 
beautiful features are revealed to his eye, 
he feels as if he were in a new world. And 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 141 

so, when the Sun of righteousness rises 
above our sensible horizon and reveals the 
landscape of truth which had been hitherto 
hidden from our eyes by the cloud upon the 
heart, we exclaim, "I have heard of thee by 
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye 
seeth thee." "They are not new truths; 
but they are seen by a new light, and, as if 
by enchantment, are transfigured into new 
existence." Faith is "the evidence of 
things not seen." It passes the bounds of 
sense, penetrates the sky, and "gives eternal 
things their due weight in our practical 
estimation, and imparts to them the life and 
power of waking certainties and actual 
existences." 

This is the victory that overcometh the 
world, even our faith. It was by this 
principle that "Moses, when he had come 
to years, when all that could fire ambition 
or make temptation irresistible glittered 
around him, refused to be called the son 



142 THE LAW OF HONOR. 

of Pharaoh's daughter, — to be introduced 
into that splendid court as the center of its 
attraction and fashion; choosing rather to 
suffer affliction with the people of God than 
to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. 
And why ? Because a glorious immortality 
and a present God were opened to his faith. 
He endured as seeing Him who is invisi- 
ble."* 

If we could realize that these bodies of 
ours are not all of us, — that within them 
lies hidden a principle of life which will at 
the coming of Christ burst into bloom as 
trees unfold their flowers at the advent of 
spring, — instead of fearing man, who can 
only kill the body, we should rather fear 
Him who has power to destroy both body 
and soul in hell. This world which we see, 
and which so absorbs us, is not the only 
world. There is within us and around us 

* Woodward's Sermons. 



THE LAW OF HONOE. 143 

an invisible and spiritual world, of which 
temporal and visible things are but the 
types and shadows. The very air around 
us is, perhaps, populous with spirits upon 
their ministries of mercy. Certainly be- 
hind the gauze veil which bounds our vision 
there is a glorious world of saints and 
angels, and, "high over all, God blessed 
for evermore." If these truths were recog- 
nized in men's practical estimation, there 
would be no conflict between the law of 
honor and the law of God. God, and not' 
the kings or the people of this world, would 
be recognized as the "fountain of honor," 
and the law of God and the law of honor 
would coincide. To realize in this world 
this beautiful and infinitely desirable ideal 
is the work of the Church of Christ. 

It cannot be done by legislation. " Ex- 
ternal ameliorations which outrun the 
internal are mischievous." It can only be 



144 THE LAW OF H02TOK 

done by planting principles in individual 
hearts, and leaving these to work themselves 
out gradually to the surface and mold the 
manners and external institutions of men. 



THE DUEL. 145 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE DUEL. 

11 Honorable 
Without the stamp of merit." 

SlIAKSPEARE. 

•• More honored 
In the breach than the observance." 

Shakspeare. 

A discussion of tlio law of honor which 
omitted the duel would be like the drama 
of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. 
The duel is one of the peculiar fruits of the 
law of honor. The duellist is the only one 
of the votaries of honor who has digested 
its laws into a written code. Of these codes 
there are several, peculiar to certain times 
and peoples. The fact that there are several 
codes furnishes another illustration of the po- 
sition taken in a previous chapter, — namely, 
that the law of honor is nothing more than 



146 THE DUEL. 

"the praise or blame which, by consent 
establishes itself in the several societies, 
tribes, and clubs of men in the world, 
whereby several actions come to find credit 
or disgrace, according to the judgment, 
maxims, and fashions of that place." The 
codes of honor enacted by those who appeal 
to the duel as the arbiter of their wrongs 
are a digest of the judgments, maxims, and 
fashions of the " societies and clubs" which 
make them. Indeed, the whole history of 
duelling is a series of illustrations of the 
same truth ; for its spirit has been transmi- 
grating into new forms from age to age. 
The precedents adduced from Holy Scrip- 
ture, (as the case of David and Goliath,) and 
the modern instances in church-history, (as 
when Pope Martin allowed the duel between 
Charles of Anjou and Peter of Aragon, to 
determine a contested claim to a kingdom,) 
were very unlike the modern duel. They 
were " compendiums of war," as they were 



THE DUEL. 147 

called, authorized by civil and religious 
authority, and designed to prevent a greater 
effusion of blood by the collisions of large 
armies. They were only just, as Jeremy 
Taylor says, when the war was just and 
only on that side on which justice was. 
The next form in which " single combat" 
appears in history was the "judicial trial," 
a sort of "divine lot of battle," introduced 
by the Goths. This, too, had the authority 
of law. It was first established, by express 
statute, Anno Domini 501, by a king of 
Burgundy.* It was the offspring of igno- 
rance, begotten by superstition in an age of 
barbarism. As the Almighty had never 
authorized such appeals, it was impious to 
make them, as it was absurd to suppose 
that He would arrest the regular operation 
of the laws of nature by interposing a 
miracle for the adjustment of every wicked 

* Moore on Suicide. 
15 



148 THE DUEL. 

quarrel that might occur in such a rude 
state of society. It was, nevertheless, an 
improvement upon the right of private 
war, which it superseded. 

The advent of the Crusades and the rise 
of chivalry wrought another revolution in 
the principles of duelling. The knight, 
with his golden spurs, (eques auratus,) and 
his motto, "God and my lady," appeared 
upon the stage. " To obtain a victory over 
the infidels and to lay the trophies of his 
triumphs at the feet of his lady" was the 
great object of his thoughts, — the end of his 
life. To secure this end, he would make 
any sacrifice without a murmur, and brave 
every danger. Chivalry was a strange mix- 
ture of gallantry and religion, — of lamb-like 
gentleness and lion-like courage. The 
strong individuality which sprung out of 
the bosom of feudalism, combined with the 
gentle spirit of Christianity and chivalry, 
was the fruit of the union. Discordant as 



THE DUEL. 149 

such a union seems to us, chivalry waa a 
greater improvement upon the judicial 
combat than it was upon private war. 
Each step was progress in the right direc- 
tion. The ideal of Christianity was strug- 
gling with the opposing forces of the world, 
alternately subduing and being overborne 
by them, but rising with energy from every 
fall, and gradually pervading society with 
an influence more delicate and divine than 
belongs to human legislation.* 

If we compare the modern codes of honor 
with the ceremony of the reception of a 
knight in the twelfth century, we shall see 
how little of the spirit of ancient chivalry 
survives in the modern duel. I abridge 
from Guizot a graphic picture of the scene. 

The aspirant for knighthood was first 
bathed, as a symbol of purification, and 

* "Religion and imagination — the church and 
poetry — took possession of chivalry, and made it a 
powerful means of fulfilling the moral needs which it 
was their mission to satisfy." — Guizot. 



150 THE DUEL. 

then clothed in "a white tunic, as a symbol 
of purity, in a red robe, a symbol of the 
blood he was bound to shed in defense of 
the faith, and in a black coat, the symbol 
of death. After fasting for twenty-four 
hours, he passed the night in prayer in a 
church, — sometimes alone, sometimes with 
his godfather and a priest, who prayed with 
him. The next day, after confession, he 
received the communion, attended the mass 
of the Holy Ghost, and heard a sermon 
upon the duties of knights. The sermon 
ended, he advanced to the altar, with the 
sword of the knight suspended from his 
neck, to be blessed by the priest. He then 
kneeled before the lord who was to knight 
him. 'If,' says the lord, 'you enter the 
order to become rich, to repose yourself, 
and be honored without doing honor to 
chivalry, you would be as unworthy of 
chivalry as a simoniacal priest of the 
prelacy.' Upon his promise of faithful- 



THE DUEL. 151 

ness, his prayer was granted. Then the 
knights, sometimes assisted by ladies, put 
on him the spurs, the hauberk, the cuirass, 
and gauntlets, and girded on his sword. 
Then the lord, giving him three blows with 
the flat of his sword on his shoulder or 
neck, said, 'In the name of God, St. 
Michael, and St. George, I dub thee knight. 
Be brave and loyal.' He then sprung upon 
his horse without the help of stirrups, 
brandishing his lance and making his sword 
glitter." The following are some of the 
articles of faith to which he solemnly 
swore: — "To fear, revere, and serve God 
religiously; to fight for the faith with all 
their strength, and to die a thousand deaths 
rather than renounce Christianity; to main- 
tain the just rights of the weak, such as 
widows, orphans, and maidens in a good 
quarrel ; that they would never offend any 
one maliciously, nor usurp the possession of 
another, but would fight against those who 

15* 



152 THE DUEL. 

did so ; that, above all things, they would 
be faithful, courteous, humble, and would 
never fail in their word for any loss that 
might happen to them." 

It is said that the Chevalier Bayard, the 
knight sans peur et sans reproche, always 
knelt down to pray on the field of battle. 

The true era of chivalry was between 
the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. In 
1352, King John of France said, "The 
flower of chivalry for some time has lan- 
guished and lost its splendor. The knights 
have become addicted to idleness and vanity, 
and, neglecting their honor and renown, 
have allowed themselves to be occupied 
with their private interests only." In 
dying, it gave birth to the religious mili- 
tary orders, the Teutonic Knights, the 
Templars, and the Knights of St. John of 
Jerusalem. 

The duel, which survived the decay of 
chivalry, was but the ghost of departed 






THE DUEL. 153 

principles. Depreciated from the religious 
element, it gradually degenerated into a 
self-avenging power. 

A great impulse was given to duelling 
by the famous challenge of Francis I. of 
France to Charles V. of Germany. The 
remark of Francis, that he was no honest 
man who could bear the lie, Bacon says, 
"was the fountain of this new learning." 
This example, flowing from the " fountains 
of honor," propagated itself through all 
ranks of society, until, in the words of 
Eobertson, "much of the best blood of 
Christendom was shed, and at some periods 
war itself has hardly been more destructive 
than these private contests of honor." Such 
excesses produced a powerful reaction,* in 
which France took the lead and punished 
duellists with extreme rigor, insomuch that 
many gentlemen who had been wounded in 

* The Council of Trent passed a canon against 
duelling. 



154 THE DUEL. 

duels "were hanged with their wounds 
bleeding, lest death should prevent the 
example of justice." Charles IX. declared 
that he took upon himself the honor of all 
those who felt themselves grieved at not 
accepting a challenge. 

Cardinal Mazarin, during the reign of 
Louis XIV., took very effectual measures 
for its suppression. Courts of honor were 
established throughout the kingdom, to 
adjust all differences between gentlemen. 
A declaration against duels was published 
and articles drawn up "touching reparation 
of honor. By these articles, calling a man 
a fool or a coward was punished by a 
month's imprisonment, and after his release 
the offender was required to declare to the 
party offended, that he had wrongfully and 
impertinently injured him by outrageous 
words, which he owned to be false and for 
which he begged his pardon. For blows 
with the hand, the penalty was imprison- 



THE DUEL. 155 

merit for six months and the submission of 
the offender to the same blows, with con- 
fession and begging of pardon. For blows 
with a cane, the offender was to beg pardon 
upon his knees."* Vigorous measures were 
also taken in England in the same direction. 
The charge of Sir Francis Bacon, in the 
Star-Chamber, against Priest and Wright, 
with the decree of the court in the cause, 
is a historical document upon this subject. 
In this charge Bacon calls it "a sorcery 
that enchanteth the spirits of young men, 
that bear great minds with false show, 
and a kind of satanical illusion and appari- 
tion of honor against religion, against law, 
against moral virtue, and against the pre- 
cedents and examples of the valiantest 
nations. "f The court imposed a fine of five 
hundred pounds upon one party, and five 

* Mandeville's Dialogues. 

f He meant Greece and Rome, as appears in the 
progress of the charge. 



156 THE DUEL. 

hundred marks upon the other, and required 
them to confess in open court their "high 
contempt and offense against God ; his 
majesty, and his laws." 

Thus have church and state, concen- 
trating their forces, brought all their 
batteries to bear and fired all their hot 
shot upon this institution; and yet it 
survives. They have only succeeded in 
driving it into a corner, where it stands 
like a lion at bay, defying the combined 
powers of heaven and earth. 

11 In midst of all his foes, 
He, like a lion, keeps them all at bay, 

And when they seem him stoutly to inclose, 
Yet through the thickest hews him out a way." 

This is a phenomenon that should not be 
lightly treated. It demands the profound 
study of every statesman and divine. It 
will not do to say, with Falstaff, "Honor's a 
word, — air, — a mere scutcheon. I'll none 



THE DUEL. 157 

of it." It is not a mere scutcheon: it is 
rather, in the words of Addison, — 

" A sacred type, 
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection, 
That aids and strengthens virtue when it meets her, 
And imitates her actions where she is not: 
It ought not to be sported with." 

It is error akin to this to treat all irre- 
ligious men as standing upon the same level. 
There is only one sense in which they are 
on a dead level. Ungodliness is their 
common quality; and unless they repent 
they will all perish. In other respects 
there is a vast difference in the moral quali- 
ties of the men of the world. Some are 
truthful, honest, patriotic, brave, gentle, 
and generous. Such men are the "fair 
marble pillars"* in the social edifice, without 
whose support it would often tumble in ruins. 
To class these with the low, narrow, selfish, 
sensual, and craven people who sometimes 

* Spencer. 



158 THE DUEL. 

infest society, is a gross injustice and a great 
error. Such treatment tends to " thrust 
men either into desperation or wretch- 
edness of most unclean living." "We must 
not ignore facts because they stand in the 
way of our theories. Our Saviour com- 
mended the moral young man who had kept 
the commandments, although he shrank from 
the searching test which was applied to him. 

Duelling cannot be cured by anathemas. 
No individual was ever converted, no 
moral reform ever effected, by curses. It is 
the prerogative of God to curse, — the office 
of man to bless those who curse him, and 
do good to those who despitefully use and 
persecute him. 

Legislation cannot, in the present state 
of public sentiment, extirpate it. In abso- 
lute monarchies, where the king is regarded 
as the fountain of honor, it may be sup- 
pressed for a time; but it uniformly reappears 
when the pressure is removed or relaxed. 



THE DUEL. 159 

But in all free countries, unless legislation 
is a reflection of popular sentiment, it La a 
dead letter. Tublic opinion does not e 
to be definitely made up upon this question. 
This, I think, is a fair inference from the 
hesitating and fluctuating policy of our 
legislatures, — in one breath condemning the 
duel, and in the next absolving the duellist. 
Politicians are accustomed to feel the pulse 
of the body politic, and their legislation is 
generally an echo of its throbbings. As 
vanes upon steeples show which way the 
wind blows, so does legislation indicate the 
direction and rate of the currents of opinion. 
I fear that this evil can never be eradicated 
until public sentiment is more conformed to 
the law of God, — when "swords shall be 
beaten into plowshares, and spears into 
pruning-hooks, and they shall learn war no 
more." 

Even if it should be true, as alleged by 
some, that the voice of the majority of the 

16 



160 THE DUEL. 

people is already against this custom, it 
must be borne in mind that if our theory is 
true the majority of the whole does not 
rule in this case. The church, for example, 
is unanimous against it; but the duellist 
does not defer to the opinion of the church. 
He denies its jurisdiction upon some ques- 
tions. The opinion of one nation has no 
weight with the people of another. Even 
in the same country — as in the United 
States — the opinions of one section are 
frequently directly antagonistic to those of 
another. There is often a like difference in 
social circles. 

It is the praise or blame attaching to 
certain acts in the particular circles in 
which we move that is the great deter- 
mining motive of men's conduct. You may 
chase such evils from continent to continent, 
and from state to state, and from circle to 
circle; but so long as there is a tribe, 
society, club, or company of men which the 



tiik duel. 






eh, you oannot • 
m from the world, 
we, then, to shut our months 
foM '1 witness this 

[ huniai. 

surviving widows and orphans, without an 

etV-.n • wh:lt » 

t l lrn _ can hold ap tho 

iaim it in lib 
try an. I realise it in our own persons, and 
thus Lei onr Li ' ], ' n tli:lt 

th.-v, Beeing our good works-, may gi 
our Father who is in heaven. We can pray 
and Labor with untiring seal for the coming 
f th< »ed time when every knee BhaU 

tongue i 

the glory of God the 
Father. I tar Labor will not be lost Truth 
in the end will triumph; far "the | 
troth are the f God condemning the 

usurpation of his creatures." This will 



162 THE DUEL. 

prevent the prescription of vice, and keep 
" misguided men from deifying their pas- 
sions after having adored them in their 
hearts." And as for those who still prefer 
the praise of men to the praise of God, let 
us not visit them with execrations: this 
will only harden their hearts and drive 
them beyond the reach of our influence. 
Let us rather pursue them with kind words 
upon our lips and kind looks in our eyes. 
Some of them have noble traits, which, if 
recognized and encouraged, might, by God's 
blessing, enable them to break the bonds 
which enslave them to an erroneous prin- 
ciple. Their bosoms are often the battle- 
ground of contending thoughts and emotions, 
which would make us weep if we could see 
them and hear the sighs which they -wring 
from them in their moments of solitude and 
reflection. The following letter, written by 
such a man on the eve of a duel, illustrates 
what I mean: — "I am now called upon and 



THE DUEL. 163 

by the rules of honor forced to fight with 

. God only can know the event ; and 

into his hands I commend my spirit, con- 
scious of having done my duty. I commit 
my soul to God, in hope of his pardon for 
the irreligious step I take in compliance 
with the unwarrantable customs of this 
wicked world." To some minds, such a letter 
would seem to indicate madness in its 
author. He who would thus interpret it 
has not studied man in all his moods and 
tenses. 

Adam Smith, in his ''Theory of the 
Moral Sentiments," and McCosh, in his 
"Divine Government," have expounded the 
power of custom and fashion in perverting 
our moral judgments and biasing our con- 
sciences; and Macaulay, in his essay on 
Machiavelli, has explained by this principle 
the different standards of character* among 

* "Among the Northern nations valor was needful for 

self-defense, and hence courage came to be ranked 

16* 



164 THE DUEL. 

the different nations of the earth, and re- 
marks, "Such are the opposite errors 
which men commit when their morality is 
not a science, but a taste, — when they 
abandon eternal principles for accidental 
associations." 

Of course I do not justify those moral 
perversions by which sins such as duelling 
have a sort of halo thrown around them 
from being associated in the mind with the 
brilliant qualities of gallantry and courage. 
I only maintain that these are real pheno- 
mena, and should be taken into account in 
our estimate and treatment of men. They 
prove that some great catastrophe has 

among the highest of the virtues, and was supposed 
to excuse ambition, rapacity, and cruelty, while 
cowardice and all its kindred vices, as fraud and 
hypocrisy, hollow friendship and violated faith, were 
objects of abhorrence. Among the Italians, on the 
other hand, every thing was done by superiority of 
intelligence, and they came to regard with lenity those 
crimes which require address, fertile invention, and 
profound knowledge of human nature." — McCosh. 



THE DUEL. 165 

befallen our nature, leaving the human 
mind "a sublimer ruin than those which 
illustrate Athens and Eome. When Paul 
walked the streets of Athens, his spirit was 
stirred within him, not when he gazed at 
the Acropolis, but when he "saw the city 
wholly given up to idolatry/' And any 
right-minded man will feel a profound com- 
passion for men who are the victims of an 
enchanting illusion which so blinds the 
eyes of their understandings that their 
fellow-sinners whose company they keep 
seem as God in their sight, by whom the 
"Lord of glory" himself is eclipsed.* This 
is proved by the fact that upon the subject 
of the duel and other subjects, the rule by 
which they judge is not the law of God, but 
the law of honor, which has been shown to 
be practically nothing more nor less than 

* There is profound wisdom in the adage, "Tell me 
what company you keep, and I will tell you what you 
are." 



166 THE DUEL. 

the prevalent opinions in certain social 
circles and associations. Perhaps no man 
has ever formally adopted such principles. 
It may be that there are many who are 
not even conscious of acting upon them. 
They have never been with them subjects 
of reflection. Springing originally from 
that love of honor which is part of our 
moral constitution, and which within certain 
limits is not only innocent, but useful, they 
have gradually grown, until the man finds 
himself, before he is aware of it, like 
Laocoon, in the complicated folds of a 
serpent, without power to break his bonds. 

That the law of honor should be so amended 
as to comprehend moral and religious as 
well as social obligation, cannot be seriously 
questioned by any one who acknowledges 
the paramount authority of God. Some of 
the consequences which flow from the present 
system are so pernicious that they need only 
to be stated to insure their condemnation. 



THE DUEL. 167 

By distinguishing between a man of honor 
and a man of virtue, and making courage, 
or rather a willingness to fight with certain 
weapons and according to certain rules, the 
differentia essentialis* of a " man of honor," 
you, by one dash of the pen, draw black 
lines around and expunge from the rolls of 
honor all conscientious Christians, and even 
Christ himself, and you include many men 
who are habitually guilty of the most shame- 
less vices, as debauchery, drunkenness, and 
such like. These are consequences which 
I know the better class of those who ac- 
knowledge their obligations to the law of 
honor feel and deplore. They are often 
mortified and disgusted to find themselves 
upon the same level with those whom 
they know to be wanting in many of the 
attributes of a gentleman. There was truth 

* Woodward suggests that, according to this rule, 
the difference between a gentleman and other men is 
that between a game-cock and a dunghill fowl. 



168 THE DUEL. 

and pathos in the exclamation of one who 
said, "Honor, thou unfortunate word! 
how art thou tortured from thy true import! 
True honor scorns a mean action, seeks 
fame in paths of useful glory, is the guard- 
ian of innocence, patron of virtue, and 
friend of humanity, justice, and religion." 
Those who feel thus should throw off their 
allegiance to this usurpation, and give honor 
to whom honor is due. Let them come 
out from those associations "whose sneers 
so try the muscles of courage," and ally 
themselves with that company of which 
Christ, "the first true gentleman that ever 
breathed," is head, and they will find the 
approbation of their own consciences, the 
smiles of their God, and the sympathies and 
fellowship of their new companions will 
make sweeter music to their ears than the 
applause of the whole world besides, — music 
whose melody will not be marred by the 
sneers of their old comrades, and which will 



THE DUEL. 169 

be all the sweeter from the fact that it is an 
earnest and a foretaste of the last plaudit 
which will greet their ears: — "Well done, 
good and faithful servant: enter thou into 
the joy of thy Lord." In heaven the law 
of God and the law of honor coincide. 



APPENDIX. 

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



I.— Page 11. 

Council of Macon, a.d. 585. 
Since this book was committed to the press, I 
found in Guizot's ''History of Civilization," vol. iii. 
page 274, the following note, viz. : " It was in this 
council that took place the celebrated discussion 
of which it has been so often said that the question 
was, whether woman had a soul. The fact is, that 
a bishop insisted that a woman ought not to be 
called homo, but he submitted to these two 
reasons: That God created man male and female, 
and that Jesus Christ, the son of a woman, is called 
the son of man." 

II.— Page 119. 

Extract from a sermon preached to the men assembled at 
Episcopal Convention at Fredericksburg, in May, 18oG, by 
Kev. X. II. Cobbs, now Bishop of Alabama. 

11 And now, my friends, suffer us, in the way of 
application, to address a word of exhortation to 
you, respectfully, affectionately, but plainly. 
17 171 



172 APPENDIX. 

"In looking over the state of society in our 
Southern country, it has often been a subject of 
melancholy inquiry, why, in comparison with the 
other sex, there should be so few men who are pro- 
fessedly followers of the Saviour. We have long 
thought that in many cases this has been owing, 
not to any deliberate rejection of the claims of 
the gospel, but to a feeling of false shame ; to 
associating with religion the idea of weakness, 
superstition, pusillanimity ; to a latent and dis- 
guised feeling in the proud and carnal heart, 
whereby men are induced to think that in be- 
coming Christians they must lower and degrade 
themselves ; that they must come down from that 
high mental elevation and give up that self-sus- 
tained and independent bearing which are so 
much admired and praised in the world. Men of 
reading and education are particularly exposed to 
the danger of being puffed up with a kind of 
mental conceit, — intellectual self-sufficiency,— with 
a pharisaical pride of intellect, and are thereby 
prompted to look down with pity, if not contempt, 
on the claims of the gospel. Such men, being 
dazzled by the glare of science and philosophy, 
and overrating the capabilities of reason and learn- 
ing, are in great danger of thinking it manly and 
independent, a mark of literary attainment, an 
evidence of philosophical emancipation, to discard 
and to ridicule the gospel of Christ. This is pecu- 
liarly one of the besetting sins of literary young 



APPENDIX. 173 

men. A lurid and malignant poison is thus un- 
guardedly imbibed, which, diffusing and .strength- 
ening itself, affects and pollutes the whole charac- 
ter, debases the mind, corrupts the principles, 
depraves the affections, cankers the heart, and 
ruins and kills the soul. But, my friends, in ad- 
dition to the pride and vanity of mind to which 
all men are exposed, we think there are some 
peculiar causes why in these Southern States 
men are powerfully and dangerously under the 
influence of the feeling of false shame. It is well 
known that during the time of the Revolution, 
and for a considerable period afterward, our 
Southern country was in a most deplorable state 
as regarded its religious advantages. The Estab- 
lishment was broken down ; its ministers had 
either fled or had generally ceased to preach ; the 
different sects which have since arisen and bene- 
fited the country were just beginning to gain 
ground and exert an influence ; and the whole 
aspect of things was most gloomy and wretched. 
Now, we are sure we intend no disrespect to any 
denomination whatever, and we trust no offense 
will be taken by any one, (for who should be more 
sparing in his censures of others than the minister 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church?) when we say 
that for a long period after the Revolution the 
character of the preaching that too generally pre- 
vailed, so far from commanding the respect, only 

served to excite the disgust, of the sober, the 
15* 



174 APPENDIX. 

reflecting, and the intelligent part of the people. 
There was so much cant and whine, — such unna- 
tural and affected manner, and voice, and sound, 
and song, and look, and action ; there was so much 
ridiculous pretension to spiritual illuminations 
and to superhuman perfections and enjoyments ; 
there was so much of the transports and rhapsodies 
of enthusiasm and fanaticism, that religion was 
actually caricature. Instead of appearing as 
something calm, sober, rational, and practical, 
calculated to make men good and wise and 
happy, religion seemed something unnatural, 
mystical, superstitious, ludicrous, contemptible. 
In order to be a Christian, as religion was then too 
often exhibited, a man had to relinquish his 
reason and judgment, to lower and degrade him- 
self in the eyes of his own understanding, to give 
himself up to the impulses of feeling and fancy 
and imagination, and in moments of high excite- 
ment to do and say many things which in his 
calmer hours he could not but be ashamed of and 
despise. In this way there has been in the minds 
of the people a gradual and general association of 
idea between religion and something that is weak, 
superstitious, ludicrous. This association of ideas 
has come down to us in the present day ; and we 
believe the force of it is felt by every man in Vir- 
ginia. 

"And this unfortunate state of things was greatly 
aggravated by the introduction of the French 



ArPENDIX. 175 

principles of philosophy and infidelity. There 
was a strong political current which gave the 
people a bearing towards every thing French. Our 
educated and reading men became impregnated 
with what wete called liberal principles, or, in 
other words, with skepticism ; and there was but 
little ability in the ministry to counteract that 
tendency to infidelity in the public mind. So far 
from commanding respect, the ministers were 
often the object of contempt and ridicule : their 
tones and their phrases, their raptures and their 
transports, were the subjects of jest, of merriment, 
and of mimicry. Even the sober and more 
moral part of the community could not sanction 
such a religion as was then too often exhibited, 
not so much in the fruits of a pious and Christian 
life as in impulses and emotions and feelings 
and ecstasies. They could not but see that those 
who made such pretensions to spiritual illumina- 
tions and to extraordinary religious attainments 
were, after all, very little improved in their moral 
principles and conduct,— that they were frequently 
no more just and upright and honest and chari- 
table and truth-telling than other people. In 
consequence of all these things, there exists in 
this country an unnatural association between 
religion and something that is weak, childish, 
superstitious, and ridiculous. It is this unjust, 
unnatural, monstrous connection— this false shame 
— which hinders many men from becoming Chris- 
17* 



176 APPENDIX. 

tians. It is this wretched feeling which causes 
so many men in our country to stifle their religious 
impressions, to go contrary to their own con- 
sciences and judgments, to act oftentimes disin- 
genuously and hypocritically, and finally to grieve 
away the Spirit of God and to bring down ever- 
lasting ruin upon their souls. We do believe 
there are thousands of men who are prevented 
from being Christians by this miserable and cow- 
ardly feeling of false shame. We look upon this 
as one of the great besetting sins and difficulties 
of men in this country. Against this unnatural 
association between religion and superstitious 
weakness — against this feeling of false shame — we 
would warn you, my friends, with all the energy 
and earnestness of our souls. We would say to 
every Southern man, as he values his soul's salva- 
tion to beware of that thing. We would appeal 
to his proper spirit of manliness and independ- 
ence, and bid him, in the fear of God, to throw off 
those chains of false shame which have enslaved 
and ruined so many thousands. Yes : we would 
say to every one who calls himself a son of Vir- 
ginia, who claims the birthright of the ' Old 
Dominion,' that it is a shame and a scandal for 
him to be afraid to carry out the convictions of 
his own judgment and conscience, — for him to be 
deterred by dread of the world from declaring 
himself on the side of the gospel, when he knows 
and feels it to be his duty. My friends, it is 



APPENDIX. 177 

ridiculous in any man now to think of treating 
the religion of the gospel with contempt, when 
she has on her side such an imposing array of 
numerical force, of moral power, and of intellectual 
artillery. It is too late now to associate the gospel 
with weakness and superstition, when such a 
splendid and mighty host of the great and noble, 
the learned and the wise, have enlisted themselves 
under her banners and have gallantly gone forth 
to vindicate her cause, to fight her battles, to 
multiply her victories, and to extend and to widen, 
the borders of her empire. No, no : there is 
nothing weak, superstitious, nor pusillanimous 
about the gospel. Every thing is sober, rational, 
dignified, elevated, and glorious. Would you wish 
to find weakness and littleness of soul, go not to 
the gospel, but to the records of infidelity. Go 
and consider what was said to be the dying prayer 
of one who was distinguished for his bitter hos- 
tility against the gospel: — '0 God — if there be 
a God — have mercy on my soul — if I have a soul !' 
Go and view the darkness, the wretchedness, the 
desolation, of that man's prospects ; consider the 
low, grovelling views, the mean, contracted, pusil- 
lanimous spirit to which that man had brought 
himself, with all his wit and all his learning. Go 
then and contrast with this the spirit and conduct 
of St. Paul in the view of death ; mark his com- 
posure, his elevation, his dignity ; hear him ex- 
claim, as he fixes his eye upon heaven, ' I am now 



178 APPENDIX. 

ready to be offered, and the time of my departure 
is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall 
give me at that day/ Go and consider these two 
men, and tell us which of them was pusillani- 
mous, which w T as philosophical. Is not the con- 
trast between them as great as that which exists 
between the light of day and the darkness of mid- 
night, — between a man, with his intellectual, noble 
and elevated bearing, and a worm of the dust 
writhing and contracting himself in his own little- 
ness and meanness of spirit? Go, and, whilst 
considering these things, say, with the holy enthu- 
siasm of one of old, 'God forbid that I should 
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 
Amen." 

Chap. II.— Part II. 
The Peculiarities of the Female Character not so much owing 

to Organization as to the Modes of Education and Habits 

of Life. 

In highly-civilized countries the women, in gene- 
ral, are weak and delicate. But these qualities are 
only the results of art : otherwise they would uni- 
formly mark the sex, however circumstanced ; but, 
as this is not the case, we may attribute them to a 
sedentary life, a low, abstemious diet, and exclu- 
sion from fresh air. Nor do these causes stop here. 
Their influence reaches further, and is productive 



APPENDIX. 179 

of that laxity of the female fibers and sensibility 
of nerves which, while it gives birth to half their 
foibles, is the source also of many of the finer and 
more delicate feelings for which we value and ad- 
mire them, and of which bodies of a firmer texture 
and stronger nerves are entirely destitute. How- 
ever paradoxical this may appear to those who 
have not attended to the subject, we scruple not 
to affirm that want of exercise, confined air, and 
low diet will soon reduce not only the most robust 
body, but the most resolute mind, to a set of weak- 
nesses and feelings similar to those of the most 
delicate and timorous female. This being the case, 
we lay it down as a general rule that the difference 
of education and the mode of living are the prin- 
cipal causes of the corporeal and mental differ- 
ences which distinguish the sexes from each other, 
and we persuade ourselves that nature, in forming 
the bodies and minds of both sexes, has been 
nearly alike liberal to each, and that any apparent 
difference in the exertions of the strength of the 
one or in the reasoning of the other is much more 
the work of art than of nature. We know it is a 
generally-established opinion that in strength of 
mind as well as of body men are greatly superior 
to women, — an opinion into which we have been 
led by not considering the proper propensities and 
paths chalked out to each by the Author of their 
nature. Men are endowed with courage and bold- 
ness ; women are not. The reason is plain. These 



180 APPENDIX. 

are beauties in our character ; in theirs they 
would be blemishes. Our genius often leads us to 
the great and to the arduous, theirs to the soft 
and the pleasing. We bend our thoughts to make 
life convenient, they turn theirs to make it easy 
and agreeable. Would it be difficult for women to 
acquire the endowments allotted to us by nature? 
It would be as much for us to acquire those pecu- 
liarly allotted to them. Are we superior to them 
in what belongs to the male character ? They are 
no less so in what belongs to the female. But 
whether are male or female endowments most 
useful in life? This we shall not pretend to deter- 
mine; and, until it be determined, we cannot de- 
cide the claims which men or women have to 
superior excellence. 

But, to pursue this idea a little further, would it 
not be highly ridiculous to find fault with the 
snail because she is not so swift as the hare, or 
with the lamb because he is not so bold as the 
lion? Would it not be requiring from each an 
exertion of powers that nature has not given, and 
deciding on their excellence by comparing them 
to a wrong standard? Would it not appear rather 
ludicrous to say that a man was endowed only 
with inferior abilities because he was not expert 
in the nursing of children and practicing the 
various effeminacies which we reckon lovely in a 
woman ? Would it be reasonable to condemn him 
on these accounts ? Just as reasonable as it is to 



APPENDIX. 18 L 

reckon women inferior to men because their 
talents are, in general, not adapted to tread the 
horrid path of Avar nor to trace the mazes and 
intricacies of science. Horace, who is by all al- 
lowed to have been an adept in the knowledge of 
mankind, says, " In vain do we endeavor to expel 
what nature has implanted;" and, we may add, in 
vain do we endeavor to instill what she has not 
planted. Equally absurd is it to compare women 
to men, and to pronounce them inferior because 
they have not the same qualities in the same per- 
fection. We shall finish this subject by observing 
that, if women are really inferior to men, they are 
the most so in nations the most highly refined and 
polished. There, in point of bodily strength, for 
the reasons already assigned, they are certainly in- 
ferior ; and such is the influence of body upon 
mind that to their laxity of body we may fairly 
trace many, if not all, the weaknesses of mind 
which we are apt to reckon blemishes in the fe- 
male character. Those who have been constantly 
blessed with a robust constitution and a mind not 
delicately susceptible may laugh at this as ridicu- 
lous; while those in whom accidental weaknesses 
of body have given birth to nervous feelings with 
which they were never before acquainted will view 
it in another light. But there is further reason 
for the greater difference between the sexes in 
civil than in savage life, — which is, the difference 
of education. While the intellectual powers of 



182 APPENDIX. 

males are gradually opened and expanded by cul- 
ture in a variety of forms, those of females are 
either commonly left to nature, or, which is worse, 
warped and biased by fantastical instruction dig- 
nified by the name of education. To this reason 
we may add another : men, everywhere the legis- 
lators, have everywhere prescribed to women rules 
which, instead of weaker natures and less govern- 
able passions, require natures more perfect and 
passions more under subjection ; and, because 
women have not always observed these rules, the 
men have reckoned them weak, wicked, and irre- 
strainable in their pursuit of sensual gratifications. 
The opinion that women are a sort of mechanical 
beings, created only for the pleasures of men, 
whatever votaries it may have had in the East, 
has had but few in Europe. A few, however, have 
even here maintained it, and assigned various and 
sometimes laughable reasons for doing so. Among 
these, a story we have heard of a Scotch clergy- 
man is not the least particular. This peaceable 
son of Levi, whose wife was a descendant of the 
famous Xantippe, on going through a course of 
lectures on the Eevelation of St. John, from that 
abstruse writer imbibed an opinion that the sex 
had no souls, and were incapable of future rewards 
and punishments. It was no sooner known in the 
country that he maintained such a doctrine, than 
he was summoned before a presbytery of his 
brethren, to be dealt with according to his delin- 



APPENDIX. 183 

quency. When he appeared at this bar, they asked 
him if he really held so heretical an opinion. He 
told them plainly that he did. On desiring to be 
informed of his reason for so doing, "In the 
Revelation of St. John the Divine," said he, "you 
will find this passage : — 'And there was silence in 
heaven for the space of half an hour.' Now, I ap- 
peal to all of you, whether that could possibly 
have happened had there been any women there. 
And since there are none there, charity forbids us 
to imagine that they are all in a worse place: 
therefore it follows that they have no immortal 
part. And happy is it for them, as they are thereby 
exempted from being accountable for all the noise 
and disturbance they have raised in this world/' 

Chap. III.— Page 92. 

The following lifelike picture is from an unpublished 

sermon of Bishop Meade, addressed to men. 

" I know that for a short time the tender mother 
exerts a mighty moral influence over her little 
sons. She teaches them to believe, to pray, to 
bend their little knees and clasp their little hand^ 
each morning and evening, and they humbly 
fall down by her side in the temple. But how 
long does this last, unless the father kneels down 
beside the mother and his child ? Ah ! how the 
boy imitates the man ! Scarcely does he with his 
head overtop the pew, than we find him standing 
or sitting and looking all around him. And 
18 



184 APPENDIX. 

wherefore this ? His father is sitting or standing ; 
and shall he rebuke his father ? Is he not taught 
to honor hini and follow his example ? Can my 
father do wrong ? How natural such a thought 
in the heart of the child ! Would that this were 
all ! On too many a Sabbath, where is the father? 
In the temple ? No. And where the mother's dar- 
ling son ? By her side ? No : he is at home, in the 
streets, on a party of pleasure. And why not, as 
the father set him the example ? The poor mother 
entreated, warned, all in vain: perhaps she was 
laughed at by her own son, as she had often been 
by his father. And perhaps, soon after, she hears 
those dear lips which she had taught to say, ' Our 
Father which art in heaven,' uttering horrid oaths 
which he learned from his father on earth ; and 
ere long he becomes the free-thinker, the scoffer, 
and the libertine. As is the father, so is the son ; 
and who shall say to how many generations this 
may descend, according to the just judgment of 
that God who visits the sins of the fathers upon 
the children unto the third and fourth generation ? 
" Again : what a different world would this be if 
the men, to whom are committed so much wealth, 
talent, strength, and power, were disciples of Christ ! 
How would our Sabbaths be hallowed, our temples 
crowded, our pulpits filled with zeal and talent, 
and millions be poured into the treasury of the 
Lord ! How many young men would be preserved 
from vice and sin, and how many females en- 



APPENDIX. 185 

couraged to more zeal, instead of being hindered 
and forbidden ! Oh, what a change would soon be 
in the world if men only did as much more as 
now they do less than the weaker sex ! 

"There are those who say, the very fact you state 
that but few of the men, and especially of the 
honorable and wealthy, are religious, is an argu- 
ment against it. If religion were certainly true 
and so excellent, the men —the lords of creation — 
would be foremost to embrace it. To this I reply 
that women are not so inferior in learning to the 
general mass of men as some suppose. They read 
more on the subject of religion, and are far better 
acquainted with the Scriptures, than men. Indeed, 
it is lamentable to think of the neglect of the 
religious element in the education of young men 
in our schools and colleges. 

" If many young men who graduate at college 
were examined in the details of the Scriptures, — 
upon the doctrines of Christ and the history of 
the Church, — how would they fall short of a well- 
instructed class in a Sunday-school ! 

"And if a number of the most irreligious and 
skeptical men in town were to be subjected to an 
examination (before us all, in this church) in the 
Holy Bible, would they show that they had been 
carefully studying the same ? No, my friends : 
nothing but violence could make them submit to 
such an exposure of their criminal ignorance of 
that venerable volume. And it is on such testi- 



186 APPENDIX. 

mony that our religion is to be rejected as un- 
worthy of men and only fit for weak women and 
ignorant persons ! 

"Oh, the tremendous responsibility that rests on 
man, and the account he will have to render at 
the last day ! If the glorious gospel is not speedily 
preached throughout, it is because the men do not 
choose to put forth the exertions necessary to that 
end. 

"And is there no hope of a reformation ? Is 
this dreadful habit of irreligion fastened upon 
the men, and especially upon the rich and edu- 
cated, forever? And must it descend hereafter, 
as in times past, from father to son as an inherit- 
ance forever? Are we to lie down in despair, or 
calmly look on and expect nothing else, as if it 
was fixed as fate, firm as the decrees of Heaven ? 

"Oh, if the dreadful habit could once be broken, 
— if we could see only one generation of pious 
fathers, — then we might expect the promise of 
mercy to the thousands of generations which 
should descend from those pious fathers. 

"0 fathers, lead the way, I beseech you. Your 
sons will follow. Have pity upon your dear sons, 
and do not lead them into perdition. Do not 
teach them to curse you in a dying hour, and 
perhaps load you with bitter execrations in the 
regions of despair." 

THE END. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: MagrwsRrm Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAl FRVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2)11 



y0l 



